{ Julia }

Peter flips open the phone in his hand and checks the time for the hundredth time.

They're late —

Julia wraps her arms tighter around herself and huffs a breath. "I thought you said they'd be here," she grumbles.

"They'll be here."

I hope —

Julia pushes away Peter's thoughts and nuzzles her face into her scarf. It's freezing out here, literal icicles hanging from the Brooklyn bridge and ice floating along the East River, and Peter is practically wearing only a t-shirt. Maybe it's because he doesn't feel cold anymore, not like how he used to. Maybe it's because his metabolism burns through him at all hours of the day. But Peter was hot long before he got powers.

(oh my God — )

(that's so embarrassing — )

(even for me — )

(wait, i have the same metabolism he does — )

"Steve does like to be a drama queen when it comes to his entrances," Peter says.

Hey —

The thought is offended and doesn't come from Peter. Julia listens more intently, and soft footsteps land behind them. She smiles knowingly.

"I take offense to that," a stern voice cuts through the air.

Julia and Peter turn to face the legendary Avenger lowering himself from the bridge railing. Relief flows through Julia at the sight of Steve, and nerves jolt Peter.

"You're complimented by it," she teases him, "don't lie."

It's true —

I love it —

Steve smiles shyly. "That's gonna take some getting used to," he admits and steps forward, pulling her into his embrace

Julia grins into his familiar hug. If she had a brother, she imagines it would be a lot like having Steve around.

Jealousy rings red from Peter —

Okay, you can stop hugging now —

Julia's smile deepens to a laugh and she pulls back.

Steve gives Peter a nod. "Queens."

He salutes. "Cap'n."

Julia looks between them, confused, and a little left out of the joke like she missed something. But one delve into the memories triggered from the city's name, Julia sees Peter and Steve battling it out on the airport's tarmac.

"You dropped a… boarding gate on him?" Julia asks, confused.

Steve's brow raises in surprise. "He — he handled it," he fibs, gesturing to Peter standing next to him alive and well.

"I threw cargo boxes at him," a smooth voice adds.

Julia looks over at the woman approaching and hears the excitement stemming from Peter.

That's her —

This is it —

It's true, she did —

It was very fun jumping around like a moving target —

Julia stares at Wanda sauntering over, lanky and graceful as a doe tiptoeing through snow, with her white beanie placed perfectly over fiery red hair. She joins them on the bridge, coming from the path instead of climbing the side like a crazy person.

"Peter," Wanda greets with a warm smile. "It's good to see you again."

"Under better circumstances, this time." He flashes her a smile as his cheeks flush red.

"Much better." She smiles through a quiet laugh and Peter reaches a hand to his neck to hide his embarrassment.

Julia stares at Peter as if she had laser vision. So he can have a crush on Scarlet Witch but she can't hug Captain America? Boys are the worst.

"Julia," Wanda says, turning to her and snapping her from her thoughts. "It is so nice to meet you."

"It's nice to finally meet you." Julia's read about Wanda in the news. She didn't believe all the things they said about her, and now with her standing before Julia, she sees the weight of the burden she carries. Wanda's memories are a labyrinth of guilt and inexperience but also learning and cunning. Julia's friends talk about Avengers all the time at school, but it's still surreal to be meeting them.

Julia hears question marks bouncing from Peter and she looks at him looking around the bridge.

"Where are the others?" He asks.

Images of a blonde woman appear from Steve —

Julia remembers seeing her file at the compound, though she wasn't always blonde —

And thoughts of Vision sound in a calming wave from Wanda —

She really loves him.

"Safe," Steve replies. "Wasn't any point bringing all of us out of hiding."

Julia's brow furrows. She hears another trail of thoughts nearby.

"So why is Sam standing guard at the base of the bridge?" Julia jerks her thumb over her shoulder to the dark skinned man casually sipping coffee nearby.

Steve sighs. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Come with me," Wanda says, steering Julia away by the shoulders. "Thank you, boys. I'll take it from here."

Julia gives an affectionate eye roll at Steve, and glances back at Peter. He walks the other direction, deeper across the bridge with Cap, and looks back at her too.

Good luck —

You got this —

Julia's lips part in an inaudible gasp. Peter knows she can listen to him, and he's using his brilliant mind to speak unspoken words he might never say aloud. They get to stay together and talk together, even if it is a one way conversation for him.

Your butt is cute —

Julia snorts a laugh and slaps a hand over her mouth to stifle it. Peter reaches a hand to his neck, smiling, and turns back around.

(he should see his own butt in his Spider-Man suit — )

Julia walks along the path toward the white, snow-laden park and despite the cold, she feels all warm and fuzzy inside. Maybe that's why Peter isn't wearing a jacket.

"I saw that," Wanda coos.

Butterflies flutter Julia's stomach. "I'm glad you couldn't hear that," she mutters with a nervous laugh.

Wanda eyes her with a knowing gaze. Julia hears the thoughts and memories of Vision springing from her mind. They've had their share of stolen, tender, and even funny moments.

"Thanks for coming," Julia tells her. "I know you didn't have to."

"It's not every day I meet someone like me." Wanda smiles.

Julia laughs astonished. "I am nothing like you. You're… awesome. I only — "

"Create webs with your mind? Hear people's thoughts?"

Julia bounces her head back and forth.

(okay, so it's a little awesome — )

"This is probably scary for you," Wanda says gently.

A memory surfaces from the Avenger. One of being confined to a cell like an animal after pledging herself to an organization to better other people's lives. She could hear her brother banging into the walls of the cell next to her, so she focused her energy on the toys they gave her to practice. She hated it until she didn't.

"I feel a lot like how you did," Julia admits, and Wanda was scared at first. "We both signed up for it, we wanted it, but I don't think we wanted the cost it would take to get it."

Guilt trickles into Julia's stomach as she thinks of the effort expanded and lives lost because of her.

"Sometimes we don't have a choice," Wanda says. "Memories are powerful things. Unreliable sometimes, but powerful."

"I feel them, too," Julia tells her. "I don't just see what someone's thinking, I feel it. Like Steve, he's…" Julia doesn't even have to reach that far to find him. His thoughts ring loud and clear like Liberty Bell. "He's worried," Julia senses. "Being out in the open, out of hiding... About you, me, Sam… There's a couple of other people too…"

Julia finds herself lingering in Steve's head and the longer she stays, the more her heart breaks. No one should have to lose as many people as he has. Guilt drags her even lower for diverting his attention and growing his worry to something as lame as her wanting to understand her own brain.

"Don't feel guilty asking for help," Wanda consoles, as if she were telepathic herself. "This is life changing. I wish I had help from someone."

Julia looks at her and sees her silvery haired brother attached to her hip from birth. She was happy, but pain swims in her bright eyes now that he lives only in her memory.

"You miss him," Julia says.

Sadness clouds Wanda.

Julia turns away from her. "I'm sorry, that's dumb, of course you do." She presses a hand to her eyes like she can force away the mental image of the twins and Wanda's smile when she was with him.

"We were alone in learning for ourselves but we had each other," Wanda calmly says. "And now you have me."

Julia lowers her hand from her eyes and looks up at the redhead, still hopeful and standing tall despite the weight of living bearing down her. Maybe Julia is like her.

"C'mon." Wanda nods to a bench along the path, waves her bony fingers, and the snow glides off of the stone and flutters to the ground.

Wanda takes a seat and when Julia sits, it's not cold like it should be. A wave of warmth hits her and she settles into the comfortable seat.

"Can you teach me to do that?" She asks, jokingly but also completely serious.

Wanda laughs. "Depends on how well you do now." She looks over at Julia with a smirk but it fades as regret trickles into her thoughts.

"When I worked with Ultron, I created nightmares in my enemies," Wanda says slowly and solemnly. "Much like you hearing someone's thoughts and seeing their memories, I would go through someone's head, find what they feared most, and watched them live those fears."

Julia doesn't remember any of that in the Ultron file report.

"Close your eyes," Wanda instructs.

Julia sets the thought aside and does as she's told.

"Explore your own thoughts," her soothing voice guides. "Not anyone else's. What do you feel?"

Julia focuses on the warmth from the bench. The feeling of her connecting to the stone beneath her. The cold air swirling around them. The breath in her nose.

"Calm," Julia answers.

"Good," Wanda replies. "Now explore beyond the calm. Beyond thought, beyond emotion, beyond just creating webs. The empathy you possess can be a gateway to seeing things other than the past. Feel your way through the web connecting us all. What do you see?"

The blackness of Julia's closed eyes glimmer with flecks of light glowing and ebbing in the dark. Stars form in the void of space and galaxies bursting with color transform the blank canvas into breathtaking luminous bouts of green and blue spilling into lavender nebulas and fuschia planets —

A burst of white-hot light explodes nearby —

Julia's brow furrows at the disturbance —

She searches the cosmos, listening and scanning for the cause, and sees a black ship towering over a small vessel —

Missiles of light fire and immobilize the ship —

And they're not attacking back —

"Violence," Julia says.

Pain erupts within Julia —

Screams echo through the stars —

"Destruction."

Burning —

She feels the heat —

People are dying —

"Chaos."

The attackers, strange and alien, board the helpless vessel —

Bodies lay strewn on the floor —

"I shouldn't be here," Julia says.

"Don't run," Wanda tells her. "Try to understand it."

"I have to feel it to understand it. I don't want to feel this — "

Thor —

Julia gasps —

( she's seen him from school — )

Muscular and strong and powerful —

He lays bound and captive on the floor —

A monstrous figure as purple as midnight stands over him —

Ripples of purple light break apart the ship —

Thor clutches a lifeless body as waves of energy rip the metal hull around him —

His heart aches as though a piece of him has died —

It's his brother —

He's dead —

Panic rises in Julia. Her breath quickens. She needs to leave.

"Don't panic," Wanda coos.

"No, I am panicking — "

"Control your thoughts," she says, calm.

Julia focuses on the calm. The evenness of her voice. She uses it to ground her and pull her from the scene.

"You choose what you focus on," Wanda's voice guides.

Julia focuses on Wanda. Maybe too much. She hears thoughts of worry, concentration, thoughts of Vision —

A tropical forest of lush, green foliage —

And a red Vision on his knees —

A deafening silence heard around the world —

Wanda falls to the ground —

She's —

She's disintegrating —

Floating —

Dissolving into nothing —

Stephen sits in a wreckage of rocks —

He's disintegrating —

He's —

He's dying —

He's dying he's dying he's dying —

And Peter —

"I can't," Julia huffs. "I-it's too fast, I can't see — "

"Don't try to rearrange them," Wanda says. "Just slow them down enough to understand."

Julia concentrates on the images she saw. Peter, Stephen, Wanda, Vision, Steve, Thor. She backtracks to the beginning like an old video in rewind.

Julia sits on the bus next to Peter. Excitement flows through them and their classmates. A pamphlet in her hand reads 'The Museum of Modern Art'. Julia hasn't stopped talking about it for weeks.

And then a circular spaceship lowers from the sky and descends into the cityscape.

Chills run down Julia's arms —

And she can't tell if it's in her vision or truly on her skin.

Julia shares a look with Peter, feeling the dread and fear and wrongness of it all, and slip off the bus with Ned's help of distracting their classmates.

She and Peter swing through the city, hearing sounds of destruction and sirens and chaos and fear, so much fear —

She follows it to a park, and Tony fights one of the aliens alongside Stephen and Doctor Banner. But the fight goes wrong and Stephen is captured, and Julia and Peter rescue him and crash land the spaceship on another planet.

Others show up, too. Other aliens. A woman with antennas, an angry blue soldier, a stout tattooed man, and a regular white guy. They're there one minute, standing on the red planet in the debris and wreckage, and in the next —

They're gone.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter says.

His voice is quiet.

Panic and fear and terror resound from him, jolting Julia.

She turns, searching the rocky terrain for him, and Tony embraces him in his arms.

"Mr. Stark, please," Peter cries. "Please, I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go."

Julia's heart plummets.

"Peter!" She screams, racing over to him.

She runs, her eyes never leaving him as she watches Tony set him down against the wreckage. She skids to Peter's side and kneels as his body disintegrates, pieces of him vanishing and floating like ash from a fire.

"Peter," she whispers, caressing his face in her hands disappearing right from under her and it feels like the ground slips out from under her and the world is ending, it's truly ending, and her heart is shattering —

"Jul…" He breathes, and Peter's eyes flutter shut as the rest of him vanishes to dust.

"No, no, no, no, no! NO! PLEASE NO! PETER!" She screams.

Julia stumbles into the dust and ash at her knees and stares at the powder on her hands.

This can't —

This can't be all that remains of him —

This can't be how it ends —

An arm hooks around Julia's waist and Tony drags her away from his final resting place. "Let him go," he says softly.

"No!" Julia wails, clawing at his grasp, crawling, fighting her way to where he was —

Because he was right there —

He —

"This is what happens in the end," a chilling voice rings across the wreckage. "All things die."

"Not him!" Julia bellows over her shoulder. "He wasn't supposed to die!"

The violet monster, Thanos, stands unphased by her tears of grief.

She watched him kill Thor's brother.

He killed Stephen and Peter.

He's killed them all.

He doesn't have an emphatic bone in his armoured body.

Tony sits back on his heels, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes, and Julia's just staring where Peter's body laid.

"Take me."

She says it softly, barely sure she even said it, but also more sure of anything in her life.

Julia looks up at Thanos staring at her, intrigued.

"Take me instead," she repeats.

"Julia," Tony warns, "no — "

"You'd trade your life for his?" Thanos asks.

A rogue tear escapes her eye and trails down her cheek. "I'm asking, aren't I?"

Thanos reaches out and wipes away the tear, and his actions only make her cry harder that someone who has inflicted so much pain can be so gentle.

"Don't cry, little one," he says between sushes of her sobs. "I'm not the monster you think I am. I am merciful. I seek not to harm others but to save others. You will do the same for this boy. It will all be over soon."

He snaps his fingers —

And the world rushes through her —

And it's her lying on the ground and Tony is jumping to his feet and she feels it —

She's slipping away —

She's —

She's dying —

And Peter —

Peter's alive. He's alive and moving and he's kneeling at her side and he's crying and he's shouting, "Why?! Why did you do it?!"

Julia touches his curly hair one last time. "You can't be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there's no Spider-Man."

He smiles, barely, just barely, but it's enough to carry her out of the darkness and up into the setting sun.

The vision fades in a polarizing ray of light and before Julia can feel the full shattering of her heart tangled with peace, the images shift.

People are dying. Disintegrating. Vanishing.

Tony and Peter are together and mourning loved ones, and life is going on but never getting better, never moving forward —

Time stretches and years flash forward and nothing has changed, it's just loss and death and sadness and grief and pain and —

Julia opens her eyes and springs forward, gasping for air. Wanda holds her tight.

"You're okay," the red head assures. "You're alright. Just breathe."

Julia focuses on breathing. She focuses on the white snow laden park before her and lets go of the wreckage of the red planet. She lets go of the deserted cities. She lets go of the future and focuses on the present.

But she can't scrub those images from her head, she can't forget what she saw, there is no forgetting —

Her skin crawls with unease at the depth of such sorrow. Horror poisons her stomach.

She doubles over like she's going to throw up.

"What?" Wanda asks, still holding her. "What did you see?"

Julia hears the worried panic stemming from her. She hears Peter and Steve and Sam running to join them followed by their thoughts of protectiveness and concern streaming like banners overhead.

She looks over at Wanda. She must have been really worried about her to call the boys over.

"Death," Julia finally answers. "Death is coming."

Peter rounds the corner first, thwiping a web and flipping to her side. He kneels like he did in her vision.

Julia's chest aches.

Julia Julia Julia —

You okay?

God, I hope she is —

Steve and Sam slow their jog to a halt.

Wanda immediately stands. "I'm sorry," she tells Steve. "I didn't think — "

"What happened?" He demands.

"I — I — I don't know — "

Julia drowns out their conversation. She knows everything they're going to say before they say it. She just focuses on the boy crouched in front of her, looking up at her with these eyes, deep with concern, and feels herself gravitating towards him.

"Julia…" Peter whispers. He reaches for her hand and entwines his fingers with hers. His skin is warm.

She touches his cheek, his chest. She feels him solid beneath her.

He's alive.

Talk to me —

Please —

Julia squeezes his hand. Peter squeezes back.

I'll take it —

She smiles a little and he does too.

You're okay —

I'm here —

Julia breathes easier and the noise of others seeps back into her senses.

That's some crazy shit —

What does death mean?

Powerful kid —

Are we all gonna die?

I've never seen anything like her —

Julia reaches to turn on the Inhibitor.

"Won't," Peter blurts out. She pauses. "That… hurt?" He finishes, hesitant.

Julia looks at him, hesitant herself. It will hurt, but she can't take any more judgements, any more visions or images or anyone else's feelings or thoughts about her or anything else. She just wants it to stop. She needs it all to stop, at least for a little while.

Julia slides on the Inhibitor —

And pain shoots through her like fire.

Julia cries out, her muscles spasming, cramping, and she falls from the bench —

Peter catches her, holds her, saying something that sounds like her name —

But the pain is right there in her ears, scalding, searing down her neck and to her brain —

Her muscles tighten —

She can't think —

She can't breathe —

She can't —

She hears new thoughts.

Thoughts of an intruder positioned in the trees.

She can protect Peter if it's the last thing she does.

Julia musters all of her strength, concentrates her energy, shoots into the earth —

And a sphere of webbing surrounds them like a shield just as the world erupts in chaos.