CHAPTER 12: TAKE CARE, MY LOVE
***GWEN***
Most of the boys are already in the mess hall by the time Skye and I get there. The only one I don't see is Steve, but he's just late to the party - running a few seconds behind me and Skye, in fact. Yeah, totally not stuck in a creepy tank full of blue stuff.
Thankfully, Hunter (the British SHIELD agent, or whatever the hell he is) isn't here, so there's a lot of English muffins to be had. I cut one in half and stick it into the toaster. Steve, meanwhile, selects a muffin of his own - the American kind. The thought of Captain America eating an English muffin, for some reason, almost gives me a major giggling fit.
"You okay, Gwen?" Peter asks when I take my seat across the table from him. He looks at me with concern over his plate of bacon and eggs.
"You're the second person to ask me that today," I say. "Do I really look that not-okay?"
"She does need a little color in her cheeks, doesn't she?" Skye says, looking from me to Peter.
"An English muffin isn't gonna be enough for that," Peter laughs. He slides all his bacon onto my plate.
"No, thanks," I say, trying to return his bacon. Peter, however, refuses to hear of it.
"I'll just get some more for myself," he says. "Or maybe I'll get you some hot chocolate?"
"They have hot chocolate?" I sniff the air, surprised I didn't pick up on it before. Sure enough, there's that distinctive smell hanging around. Faint, but I can pick up on it pretty easily. "Yeah, I'll get it myself, thanks," I say when Peter tries to stand up. "The bacon, too," I add, tipping the bacon back onto his plate. Before he can do more than stutter out half a word of protest, I get up and grab some bacon (putting it between the two halves of my English muffin) and a nice cup of hot chocolate. Which isn't as good as the stuff I have at home, but it's better than I was expecting, given the whole bankrupt-former-government-slash-military vibe around here.
Once I'm back, Peter turns to me and asks, "You sure everything's all right? I bet you've been havin' nightmares, haven't you?"
At first, I want to ask if Peter's unexpectedly developed telepathy in addition to being Spider-Man. But then I remember that Peter was having nightmares already, and from the sound of it, he didn't tell anyone. Why, I'm not sure. Maybe it's a guy thing - he doesn't want to look weak or whatever. But since right now, it's just the two of us talking (Skye has, thankfully, given us our space, gravitating over to Tony, Natasha, Clint, and Steve), I think he could do with a bit of opening up. And I could do with talking to him, because no doubt he'll empathize with me more than the others. Unless the others have had nightmares too?
So in the end, I say, "Yeah, I did."
"What was it about?" Peter asks. "I mean, if you're okay with talkin' about it." He sticks a slice of bacon in his mouth, trying to look casual. Maybe so I can relax a bit, make it that much easier for me to tell him the story.
"It was about the night I died," I say.
Right away, Peter's face falls. "I'm so sorry, Gwen," he says, taking my hand. His fingers are a tad bit greasy from the bacon, but I don't care.
"It was more than that, though," I say. I see Skye getting up and coming our way, probably on her way to get a refill on her coffee or something. I'm not sure I should keep going when she's in earshot, but if I stay silent, it'll probably get more awkward between me and Peter. So I add, "I saw something hella weird too. Doctor Strange and Ultron had me on some operating table, and-"
"What was that?" Skye asks, parking her ass on the bench next to me. "You remembered something else?"
I turn to Peter, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. "Should I tell her?"
"You're tellin' me, aren't you?" Peter says. "I say the more people you talk to, the better. Especially for something as...as...freakish as what you're talkin' about."
"I haven't even gotten to the freakish part," I say ruefully. "So, Doctor Strange, Ultron, operating table-"
"Ultron had a body?" Skye interrupts. "Like this one?" She pulls out her phone and shows me a picture on the screen. I nod - the thing in the image is a perfect match to the sleek android I'd seen in my dream.
"That's what the bad guy in the next Avengers movie is supposed to look like," Peter says, taking a look at the picture. "So this is what Ultron'll turn into if we don't stop him, huh?"
"I hope not," I say, shuddering. "But where'd you get that picture from, if the Age of Ultron movie isn't even out yet? I thought the movies were supposed to be the records of what actually happened or something."
"I'm really not sure how it works myself," Skye says, pocketing her phone. "But I sorta remember something like the events of Age of Ultron happening in the real world - this world, I mean, not yours. I can only remember bits and pieces of it, though." She frowns down at her empty plate. "Should've known that Doctor Strange had something to do with it, too. I knew he couldn't be trusted."
"Anything else, Gwen?" Peter asks.
I explain the whole tank thing to him and Skye. Both of them have their jaws drop before I'm finished talking.
"Maybe you're remembering how you guys got here?" Skye suggests. "I mean, it's totally possible that SHIELD or Stark or someone made tanks like the kind you just described. And...oh, oh, yeah, there's the GHB-25, too."
"Wh-what's that?" Peter asks, his voice shaking a bit.
"It's what was used to bring Coulson back to life after Loki killed him," Skye says. "And me," she adds in a whisper.
Now it's my turn to have my jaw drop. "Loki killed you too?" I ask.
"Not Loki, no," Skye says, shaking her head quickly. "But I kinda sorta died...until they gave me that GHB-25. It's a crazy alien serum of some sort."
"Would it, by any chance, be blue?" I ask, thinking of the color of the liquid in the tanks.
Skye shakes her head again. "Um...actually, I think it might have been blue, but I can't really remember. I do remember we found it with some blue-skinned alien guy."
"Like a Na'vi?" Peter asks.
"Kind of, 'cept obviously it wasn't, 'cause Na'vi aren't real. I think it was a Kree, actually. Like in Guardians of the Galaxy?"
"Oh, so one of Ronan the Accuser's people," Peter says.
I make a "this is so over my head" gesture, having never seen Guardians of the Galaxy. "So that's another movie that's real?" I ask.
"Uh-huh," Skye says. "But...let me think about it...okay, you died, so undoubtedly, Ultron and Strange were giving you GHB-25 to bring you back to life. That would mean they also gave it to Tadashi, and to…" Her voice trails off, then she pounds her fist lightly on the table.
"What?" I ask, unsure of what I just heard.
"Did you say 'Tadashi?'" Peter asks.
Skye ignores us both. "I gotta go talk to Coulson," she says, getting up and grabbing her plate so she can bus it.
"You sure about that?" I ask. "Coulson and Strange seemed pretty chummy to me."
"Strange only ever seems to talk to Coulson, so if anyone's got answers, Coulson does." Skye leaves the room, and Peter and I exchange confused glances.
"Great, more questions," Peter says. "Just how many of us are supposed to be dead?"
"Me, and now Tadashi," I say. "You think Hiro and the others know about that?"
"By 'others,' do you mean Honey and Go-Go and them?" Peter asks, making a small hand gesture towards the rest of the group. Honey, Go-Go, and Wasabi have joined them, while we continue to sit apart. I'm sure by now everyone's wondering why we're being so antisocial. Or why we're looking all conspiratorial. Seriously, we must really be telegraphing the impression that we're just sitting here, crafting increasingly bullshit theories about the rest of the team and whatever the hell our mission here is supposed to be.
"They sure don't act like he's been dead, so I'm gonna say no," I say.
Peter shifts around uncomfortably in his seat. "But then Coulson was supposed to be dead too. And here we are, takin' orders from the guy. And...a-and who else? Skye made it sound like-"
"Attention please!" Coulson's voice rings out through the room from a small podium in the corner. Once everyone's turned his way, he puts his hands together and says, "Thank you. Now, today we have two different tasks to complete, one of which is back in San Castiel. So half the team will head back there in the Bus, while the other half stays here for training."
Peter looks at me and raises his eyebrow. I copy his gesture, because I have a sneaking suspicion of what Coulson is going to say next.
"Peter, Steve, Natasha, and Clint, you'll be staying here today," Coulson says. "Tony, Gwen, Tadashi, and Hiro, you'll be going back to San Cas." He pauses long enough for us to hear Tony smother a chuckle, probably at Coulson's pretty stilted use of "San Cas." "I'll explain your mission when we're in the air. Wheels up in twenty minutes, so I suggest you finish your food quickly and pack an overnight bag - we'll be there at least through tomorrow morning." Another pause, then Coulson adds, "Oh, and dress warm, if you can. It's still gonna be dark there when we arrive, and I understand today's gonna be pretty foggy too. Not warm and sunny like yesterday." He steps down from the podium and leaves the room, but not before adding, "Skye, you're in charge of the kids today. Start them up in the training center after we leave."
"Got it, boss," Skye says, adding a crisp salute as Coulson leaves at last.
"So now we're gonna have to be workin' separately again," Peter mutters. "Well, shit."
"Yeah, that really sucks," I say. I'm starting to suspect that Coulson is on to Peter and me and our conspiracy theories, so he's breaking us apart to make sure we can't keep digging too deeply.
Skye comes up to Peter and tells him it's time to go. "You didn't talk to Coulson?" he asks before downing the last of his bacon.
"Oh, I did," Skye says. "He wouldn't actually say anything to me, but he did slip me this." She pulls a small object out of her pocket. A perfectly ordinary-looking, matte-black flash drive. "So, my idea is, at least pretend to train for an hour or two, then we can take a look at what's on here. Sound like a plan, Peter?"
Peter looks back at Skye. I see a flash of apprehension cross his face, but he buries that pretty quickly, rearranging his expression into something more neutral. "Y-Yeah. Good idea."
Skye turns around and goes to gather the rest of the troops. Meanwhile, I turn to Peter and say, "Well, I guess it's time for me to go."
"I guess, yeah." Peter shrugs his shoulders, then gives me a hug. Before breaking away from me, he whispers, "Don't let Coulson kill you, okay?"
I snicker loudly. "He wouldn't kill someone else who'd come back from the dead. Especially if, like him, they're a good guy."
Peter laughs out loud, then kisses me twice - once on the lips, and again on the right cheek. I always liked being kissed there, for some reason, and it looks like being dead hasn't taken that away from me. I feel the blood racing to that spot on my face, and a warm, fuzzy rush throughout my whole body.
"Bye, Peter," I say.
"Bye, Gwen." He waves to me, then salutes me goodbye as well. I can see his eyes starting to tear up just a bit as he does so.
Twenty minutes later, I board the Bus, barely managing to get on before Coulson closes the hatch. I turn around and, in the final seconds before we take off, I see Peter and the others looking at us, all waving goodbye.
Even long after the hatch is closed and the Bus is in the air, I can't shake the foreboding feeling that I'll never see Peter again. I'm no stranger to that feeling, either - I used to have it all the time, knowing that Peter would go out and do his crime-fighting, vigilante-superhero thing every single day. And even before that, when my dad was alive - my dad in New York, not in San Castiel - I would always fear the worst every day, because of the high-risk nature of his job as a cop. Especially since, despite being a captain (which was ostensibly a desk job), he would always be out in the field. My dad was always a man of action.
It's so strange, having that feeling once again, when this time, I'm the one going into something with at least a medium level of danger.
Once we're all upstairs, Coulson gathers us in the media room where we saw The Amazing Spider-Man 2 yesterday. "Okay, kids," he says. "Today, we need to collect our remaining comrades. Here are our objectives." He puts up a number of photos on the screen, each one of a different Augustine High ID card. One is for Thor Odinsson, another for Pepper Potts (I still find it hard to believe her real first name is Virginia.) For the other two, I don't recognize their names, but I do remember their faces from my dream. Margaret Carter is the brunette, and the black-haired girl is Sif Surtsdottír.
Before Coulson can say any more, however, we pass through the warp gate, going back to the other world.
That's when the plane trembles as something strikes it. "Oh no," Coulson whispers. "That's not good."
"You don't think we clipped that portal, do you?" Tony asks.
"No way," says Hiro. "May's too good a pilot for that?"
"Who's May?" I ask.
Before anyone can answer my question, something starts pounding on the window from outside. I see the end of a black, curved object being smashed into the Plexiglas repeatedly. At first, I have no idea what it could be - but then I see a bony, gray-skinned hand attached to it.
It's a Dark Elf trying to bust its way into the plane.
Coulson runs into the corridor and curses furiously as he sees more Dark Elves swarming over one of the wings. "Shit, they're everywhere!" he yells. He hits an intercom button on a nearby wall and says, "May, evasive maneuvers, now!"
"I'm already trying that," says a woman's voice, "but they've got a craft of their own, and I can't outrun it!"
Coulson goes back to the window, and all the blood drains from his face as he looks through it. He's not the only one - mine does too as I look and see a huge blade slicing through the air, cutting off a good half of the starboard wing.
"NO!" Coulson yells, pounding the window in frustration. He turns to me, Tony, and the Hamada brothers and says, "Everyone back in the media room! Buckle up and brace for impact!" Alarms are going off everywhere as we follow his orders. "How much time do we have, May?" he yells into the intercom once we're all inside.
"Thirty seconds!" May calls back. "I'll send out a Mayday!"
"Copy that!" Coulson leaves the intercom, then takes a seat, putting his head between his knees like the rest of us.
With the Bus now banking down towards the ground at a sharp angle, there's only one thought racing through my mind, as opposed to the whole "life-flashing-before-my-eyes" thing. I should've told Peter I love him.
Thirty seconds later, exactly as May predicted, the Bus hits the ground. Everything vibrates like the worst earthquake in history. The light bulbs fall out of the ceiling, hanging by only a couple of wires each, spitting out small sparks. Then the Bus starts rolling uncontrollably. We must have hit a mountain or something, and are now on a one-way course down the slopes with no brakes.
It takes only a few revolutions of the plane doing its spin-cycle routine before I become extremely dizzy. Next thing I know, I'm blacking out, the remains of the Bus continuing to roll even as I lose consciousness.