Author's Note: Just to have full transparency with the audience, I want to state my overall plans for the Civil War arc - in that this fic isn't really going to go along with the movie. Personally, I felt the CACW felt more like Avengers: Civil War with Tony Stark playing too large a role, so I'm going to make heavy alterations to the overall conflict to the point where… it's not really going to be "Civil War" anymore; there's not going to be a big fight between all the Avengers. Certain plot points will remain unchanged, and I'm going to keep/put more focus on "Team Cap" as it were (Nat, Sam, Bucky, Sharon), along with T'Challa, while taking out the direct involvement of the other Avengers characters. I know this is probably not what a lot of you are expecting, but I hope you guys will trust me and enjoy this direction I'm taking.

Overall, I'd say I'm sticking to about 50% of the movie's canon…? And the rest is gonna be done away with/replaced with what I hope will be satisfying, new content.

I'll be keeping this disclaimer up because I have a feeling that if I don't explain my intentions beforehand, the rest of the story is going to be confusing/disappointing given the expectations. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer! (I don't want to discuss what I'm doing with the plot for the sake of preserving drama).

Thank you for reading!

- PART ONE -

- 72 HOURS -

Chapter Two
✭

TWO MONTHS EARLIER

April showers filled the air with the scent of petrichor, sweet and rich. Even after everything that happened, I still found something new to appreciate in the world around me.

The weather would not make for an ideal ceremony later today, but it suited me just fine. To listen to the rain patter on the windows during school, to finally step out and find the sun shining again, the chill of winter finally gone.

"You still heading out to that memorial thing after school?" Peter asked me as the final bell rang, leaving Chem class together into the onslaught of evacuees in the hallways. Like me, Peter now stood above the crowd, having finally hit that growth spurt he always wanted and almost as tall as me now. Almost. He was still as lanky as ever, though, and weaving through the crowds was still necessary. "Don't forget May wants you home early so you can study."

I hadn't grown as much as Peter had, now reaching an easy six feet, but my hair made up for it. I held true to my personal code of never cutting my hair again, and then compromised with Aunt May for a trim here and there to take care of split ends. After over a year of growing out that hack job bob, my hair finally reached mid-back, nearly the length it was in middle school. It was also the first time I met the truth about curly hair at full health, and that it was truly unmanageable and best kept braided for as long as I could help it.

Still worth it, though.

Junior year had done well for me overall. No awful life-changing events. No terrible accidents or hospital trips. Not a single missed day of school — this was the first year I'd have a perfect attendance record, and I was determined to achieve it. I'd have no shot at Valedictorian next year, or even Salutatorian, because Midtown required a certain attendance ratio for their best students that I absolutely did not meet.

But this year. Just this once. This was going to be my year.

"Of course I'm still going," I said, slamming my locker door shut with all my books and papers inside. What I had to study for had nothing to do with Midtown, but something I had been looking forward to for a very long time now. Even if it did mean not getting to let loose on a Friday. I threw Peter a knowing look. "And I'm not going to forget about the b'nai mitzvah either. How can I when Wanda keeps texting me about it?"

"Hey, just saying!" Peter threw up his hands in innocence as we began our way out the school. "I got cold feet when I had to stand up there and read from the Torah in front of everyone."

"Well, unlike you, I won't be alone," I pointed out, even though Peter did raise a concern. I didn't exactly like being the center of attention, too many eyes on me. But I didn't expect this occasion to be too bad. "And I'm not a tiny thirteen-year-old anymore."

That had been something that had weighed on me for years — although it felt shorter, since I still couldn't remember everything that happened within two whole years of my life, stolen from me. I might have had my bat mitzvah at a proper time, on the first Shabbat after my thirteenth birthday. If I hadn't currently been in the hospital at the time, completely bedridden and unable to breathe without an oxygen tank. I had to witness Peter turn thirteen the same year, and receive what I never did.

But I was seventeen now. I was more than ready, after months of studying and more than a few tutoring sessions to get me caught up (largely thanks to Rabbi Appell's grandson Matt). And I had more fun this time around, helping Wanda arrange for the party afterwards, with Pietro pretending to be reluctant in helping with. They were even older, had waited even longer.

We were all ready.

I didn't have to explain to Peter the significance of it. He already knew. Just smiled and slung an arm around my shoulders, going in sing-song, "Just keep telling yourself thaaaat."

I laughed and pushed him away. "If I choke in front of everyone, I can trust you to never let me forget it for the rest of my life."

"It's my sworn duty," Peter grinned mischievously, before withdrawing his camera. "And there's going to be pictures. So many pictures. You in those shoes you hate. You every time you blink. Every derp face you have."

"I hate you."

"All the awkwardest of moments. And Aunt May is going to love each and every one of them. I expect them to be immortalized in frames all around the house."

"I'm starting to see why you're making so many enemies on the streets now," I said, making a half-hearted swipe for that camera. Not to snatch it, but to force Peter to put that damn thing away.

Which he did, after scoffing. "They like my jokes even less than you do. No one in this city has a sense of humor anymore."

"Your new boss most of all." I said, trying hard not to smile at Peter's groan. He had gotten freelance work as a photographer for the Daily Bugle, which he always wanted. Until he realized just who'd he be working with. J. Jonah Jameson, head of the paper and the biggest Spider-Man hater since Peter first started his career.

"Don't remind me," Peter sighed. "He pays all this money for spidey pics, just to roast me on live television! Who does that?"

I could only shrug. "Someone who knows you're too busy saving the city to defend yourself?"

Peter pouted, thinking that over. "Yeah, I guess. You're lucky he doesn't have a bone to pick with Rebel Columbia."

"That's because I don't have as prolific a career as you," I said, which was true. Rebel Columbia still remained a sort of "Emergencies Only" superhero, although that may change. With Wanda and Pietro coming into their own with their powers now, Howie working on a suit that can grow as he does, and Peter constantly making jokes about a superhero team-up a la the Avengers, there was the sense it might turn into something more.

Upon exiting the building, we ran into Ned — he had also gotten taller and was currently going through a Hawaiian shirts phase for reasons unknown. He looked a little miffed, apparently having overheard our conversation as we approached. "I hope you guys aren't talking superheroes without me. I still volunteer for the Man in the Chair position for this secret team you keep saying isn't going to happen."

"We weren't," Peter said.

"We're talking about how much Peter loves his boss," I added, earning a droll look from my cousin.

"Oh yes. So much."

"Man, who cares about him?" Ned said, leaping to the defense of his best friend. "Your photos are great, and it sucks he copyrights them for the Bugle. I would've kept my internship there if they hadn't stuck me in formatting. And didn't pay me."

"You'll find something," I said sympathetically. Getting jobs wasn't easy. I currently hadn't found anything. Ned was currently moonlighting as an IT expert at Midtown, being paid under the table by students (and technologically-inept teachers on occasion) to help resolve computer problems. And sometimes cheat, but that's only stuff of rumor and not to be repeated outside of certain group chats.

"Yeah," Ned sighed forlornly. "Although Flash did pay me three hundred bucks for saving his hard drive, so it could be worse. He needs to stop joining weird dating sites. Speaking of Flash, we still on for movie night tonight?"

"What does that have to do with Flash?" Peter threw Ned an odd look. "He's got nothing to do with it."

"Exactly!"

"Seeing as it's my turn tonight," I said, having been appointed as such by Peter, to correlate with the b'nai mitzvah tomorrow. "It's going to be an Indiana Jones marathon."

"Oh, classic!" Ned fist-pumped.

"Do I hear talk of teenage shenanigans?" From the crowd appeared MJ, curly hair tied back and her overalls splattered with paint, joining as in we stepped out onto the sidewalk, a collective party towards the subway. "Mia, I question your tastes in archeologists who insist on putting priceless cultural artifacts in museums when they belong to their people — but I can appreciate the exciting if unrealistic aspects of the supernatural."

Peter cut her a look, unable to determine if that was an insult or compliment. "Don't you hunt ghosts for a YouTube channel?"

"Maybe so," MJ pursed her lips, lifting her chin into the air as she looped an arm around mine. "But it's only crazy if you do it alone. And as a fellow artist, Parker, I feel compelled to warn you that sooner or later, you're going to lose your integrity the more you sell yourself to a faceless conglomerate."

"I wouldn't exactly call it faceless," Peter muttered, as we passed a TV storefront in which all the screens had J. Jonah Jameson's apoplectic face yelled silently in sync. "But duly noted."

"You're still bringing the pizza?" I asked, deciding this to be a very amicable reaction for the two of them.

"So long as you're providing the popcorn." MJ smiled serenely. "And yes, I'll make sure you get your pineapple."

I grinned while Ned made a disgusted sound. "I still don't get you. But I've got dibs on desserts. Gonna ruin your whole appetite for tomorrow — if Pietro doesn't eat it all first, I guess."

I had been doing my best to integrate Pietro and Wanda as part of my friend group. Even if they were older than me and my friends, I hoped to give them some sense of normalcy. They moved frequently between Avengers Tower here and the remote base in upstate New York. Partly to test their powers more safely, and partly because living in a city again was a lot for Wanda and needing mental breaks was a must.

But all in all, everything was going well. Ned and MJ were clear on who Wanda and Pietro really were, and the relief that they were cool with it had nearly ended me. Although Aunt May had to ban power tricks after the last time Pietro was dared to phase through a wall and ended up with a bloody nose.

"I promise," I said, trying not to laugh and pretend Peter or I didn't eat our fair share, either. "He'll leave some for the rest of you."

~o~

The memorial wouldn't start until 4pm.

From the subway, I parted ways with Peter, Ned, and MJ. The park was only a short trip away, so I whittled away the following hours by walking around and grabbing a snack at a food truck.

It was a good day for the memorial, it would have been sadder to be held in the rain. As I made the walk over to one of the ponds within the park, the congregation of people became quickly obvious, as was the age difference between myself and everyone else.

But then it made sense, I supposed. These were the friends and colleagues of Diana Hawkins. Although I wasn't sure if she had any friends.

There were roughly a hundred folded chairs set out in neat rows around a podium, but those had all been filled up, leaving everyone else standing or sitting in the grass. I was surprised by the size of the audience in that little park square. More than a few famous faces, set among a general group of onlookers, some security, and press. Were these friends and family of Diana Hawkins? I wasn't aware she had many outside of Dmitri. The thought of him had my heart squeezing. He should be here.

But he wasn't. I saw no flash of copper hair anywhere, and I wondered where he must be right now. Was he still in London? Did he go back to Russia?

I've tried to move on. And I'd say I'd been pretty successful so far. Junior year, I've really bloomed as a young woman — as Aunt May would say. But it was mostly just getting helix ear piercings, painting my nails (black or yellow), and a little dating. Guys and girls who never would've noticed Measles Mia a few years ago. It was kind of fun, but I found it hard to pursue anything after a first date. There was also the Not-Date with MJ where we decided we were definitely better off as friends, and determining any established romance would kill our vibes on Midtown Conspiracies. MJ claimed half our appeal was the pseudo-old-married-couple vibes we carried throughout the show.

And there were also the Not-Dates with Matt, tutoring sessions he's been helping me with. Though physically he'd changed a lot, Matt was still the kind boy I knew from ages ago. He'd mentioned a girlfriend in passing once, though his sister Tilly had so generously assured me that Gretchen Chandler was old news. I've never met this Gretchen, but Tilly had been all too happy to report that it went so terribly that Matt hasn't dated since. So. There's that.

So, it worked out. And I decided maybe I just wasn't ready for anything. And maybe I just couldn't stand the idea of hurting anyone else, the way I had hurt Dmitri.

Shaking my head, I did my best to clear the dark thoughts.

A podium was set up against the backdrop of the pond, and behind it was a large white cloth covering some statue or structure, cordoned off by red ribbon. As I wove through the crowd and found a good vantage point, my ears picked up on a bit of conversation as I passed by chairs filled with strong perfumes, big hats, and fancy suits.

"...always a dear friend of mine…"

"... that poor boy, I wondered whatever happened to him…"

"...going to miss seeing her name everywhere…"

I found a good position beneath a tree, my back to the bark and feeling confident in the safety of the spot. Despite some of the high-level guests here, I wasn't the only one dressed casually, so I didn't stand out too much from the crowd in my ripped jeans and worn green jacket. I'd recently sewn a white star onto one shoulder, since displaying my tattoo at all was against the school dress code.

The memorial began with an initial speaker, announcing the event and thanking everyone for coming, before inviting the first speaker up to the podium. A rhythm of eulogies to listen to, this first a woman who I'd seen on red carpet premieres. She spoke with tears in her eyes, and I had to admit, it got to me.

And then I heard the rest of the eulogies.

There was something off, in the way certain phrases were repeated between different people. 'Her kind spirit' and 'my lifelong friend' and 'a beloved member of the community' and 'life of the party'. I had never known Diana personally, but she had never come across as particularly kind or fun, and as far as I knew everyone in those upper-class societies were scared shitless by her and the exposes she wrote. From a war correspondent in the late Gulf wars; to exposing the child trafficking ring that earned her a Pulitzer; her biting commentary on the corporate grip of insulin and its price gouging that led to a full-blown federal court case; and the numerous shrewd and unforgiving character studies that broke more than a few careers.

Her last story of all, to expose HYDRA in all its awful glory within SHIELD, had been what killed her in the end.

Diana knew how to make enemies, not friends.

And all I heard were platitudes, rather than memories. I had the distinct feeling some people were just here for show. It wasn't like Diana was here to prove what they were saying was wrong.

The last person to give the speech was an elderly man, who needed a cane to get up on the stage. He was hunched over and needed to pull down the microphone, but his dark eyes pierced through the crowd, eyeing everyone with a shrewdness as he introduced himself.

"Many of you know me as Mr. Baron, but to Diana, I was simply Avi," He began. "I still remember the first day she walked into my office, this spirited young filly with a head of red hair and a taste for blood. She was fearless, that woman, and I knew when I first hired her that I had someone truly special on my staff. She was going to make a name for herself someday. And when she won that Pulitzer a decade later, I had never felt prouder."

He paused to clear his throat, then continue. "Diana always lived by a saying. Veritas numquam perit. Truth never dies. It is never too late to tell a story, truth deserves to be known by any and all. Diana never swayed from that; she was the most honest person I knew. Honest with me, and honest with herself. Honest even when she probably should have been kind instead. She was a flawed woman, there were many things she struggled with. But her integrity had never been one of them. She would never sacrifice that, not for money, not for power. Which is why I think she would be ashamed of all of you here, who claim to have been such loyal friends of hers."

A ripple passed through the crowd, surprise and discontent. The old man was calling them out, and he didn't flinch in the face of potential outrage. He just smiled a wry little smile. "Who do you think taught her to see through such bullshit, eh? I may be retired some twenty years now, but I knew Diana till the very end. She was lonely. She loved her work to the detriment of everything else. And I won't forget how many of you abandoned her after that divorce. To see you all now, with your pithy platitudes and white lies. They say don't speak ill of the dead. I tell you right now, Diana didn't give a damn about that, either."

The murmurings continued and I couldn't help but hide a smile behind my hand. A few people got up and left, but the rest remained, a few people clapping at Mr. Baron's words. At last, he gestured to the white shroud that lay behind him.

"And it's for her unflinching hunt of the truth that I am here today," he continued, as the shroud was pulled away by an attendant.

Beneath it revealed a bronze statue, the likeness of Diana Hawkins, perched on a bench with notebook in one hand and pen in the other, raised inquisitively with an expression of intense curiosity, body leaned forward with focus. Her bronze pupils were hollowed out, reflecting the sunlight just so that gave her form an extra spark of life that made her almost seem real from a distance.

The audience clapped at the sight, and Avi Baron stepped down the podium, walking up to the statue to rest a worn hand on the statue's shoulder. No longer in front of a microphone, his voice was thinner and far away, but I could still pick up on it. "She loved writing in this park. And here she'll stay, watching the people she wanted to serve."

The ceremony wrapped up after that, the crowd beginning to rise. Press rushed in to ask questions and snap pictures, while everyone began to talk, mingle, and disperse.

In the end, it satisfied me. There was a lot left unsaid, I thought, between Diana and I. She had figured out who I was. Not just Rebel Columbia, but also the Soldatka. The Winter Soldier's daughter. If only I had tried to befriend her. Maybe she could've told me before I got hurt. Maybe I could have protected her, warned her of the real danger she was in.

But I had failed in that, too. Never even thought to, until it was far too late.

I had nothing to keep me here. I wanted to get a closer look at the statue, but it was now lost behind a swell of bodies. Maybe I could check it out another time. And it had now been over an hour; if I headed out now, I'd still be late for dinner, so I had better get going. Even now, there was a lot of traffic exiting the park, making it a slog to get through. No sprinting for the next train, just trying my best to weave through the throng. And that's not counting the people coming in from the other direction.

I was just stepping down a short flight of steps down a hill, the street in sight, when I accidentally bumped into someone. Just a light shoulder check, had me stumbling slightly. I caught only a glimpse of the person I bumped into, felt their hand catching my arm before I could fall —

— And stumbled into rain and darkness.

My knees buckled and I dropped suddenly, gasping as I landed on metal. Not tarmac, not grass. Metal. My eyes blinded by the sudden darkness, the cold water pouring off my head. I felt dazed, nauseous, hungry.

My head snapped up, alarmed, confused. I wasn't in the park anymore. I didn't know where the hell I was.

A metal fence to my left, a guardrail to my right. An empty abyss below.

A loud honk startled me, and a truck rushed past on the other side of the chain-link, a flash of blinking light and a tidal wave crashing over me — then darkness again. In the distance, I saw city lights. I recognized the skyline of Manhattan.

A bridge. I was on a bridge, soaked to the bone. At night. Alone.

When seconds ago, I had been in Central Park, surrounded by people in bright sunlight.

What the hell just happened?