(Marvel, DC, images, manhuas, and every anime that will be mentioned and used in this story are not mine. They all belong to their respective owners. The main character "Karito/Adriel Josue Valdez" and the story are mine)
Flashback
The night air brushed against Soraka's skin as she stepped out of Ahri's apartment and into the quiet streets of Valoran City. The hum of the city had dulled, dimmed after the emotional whirlwind that was Neeko's return. Ahri and Sarah had retreated into their own space with Neeko, letting the past reconnect to the present like an old scar sealing itself shut.
Ezreal and Syndra had lingered behind, just to ensure everything was stable... but it was. Stable enough to leave.
Soraka didn't wait for conversation. Didn't explain herself.
She just... walked away.
Her steps carried her across the city's magic-lit streets, yet her mind was stuck in a spiral of self-doubt. She told herself it was noble. Necessary. That some truths were too jagged to face. But deep down, in the hollows of her chest where logic gave way to instinct, she knew the real reason.
She was afraid of him.
And that fear only grew stronger each time she pretended it wasn't there.
The door opened before Soraka even knocked.
Janna stood barefoot in the dim light of Lux's team apartment, arms folded over a Star Guardian hoodie she hadn't taken off all day. Her eyes didn't look surprised. Just tired.
"You're late," she said softly.
"I had to be sure they were alright," Soraka replied, brushing past her into the living room. "Ahri... Sarah... Neeko. They're a team again. Like before."
Janna didn't ask what she meant. She simply closed the door and locked it behind them.
The apartment was quieter than it should've been. Lulu was asleep, likely curled under too many blankets. Poppy had said she'd keep watch tonight but hadn't emerged since dinner. Lux and Jinx were out with Peter hours ago.
Peter.
The name hung in the silence like a blade they refused to touch.
Soraka took a seat on the couch, her arms resting on her lap, eyes distant. "He's going to come here," she said, barely above a whisper.
Janna didn't respond at first. She moved to the window and pulled the curtain aside, gazing at the stars that blinked in the purple-streaked sky. They looked off. Flickering oddly, as if the threads of reality hadn't fully settled since the tremors. As if time still hadn't healed.
"He probably will," she admitted. "I mean... we haven't exactly been subtle."
"Because we don't know what to think," Soraka muttered. "We don't know. That's the worst part."
She clenched her fists slowly.
"After all he's done," she continued. "After Neeko... after Riku... shouldn't I trust him? Isn't that what being a Guardian means? Offering second chances? Believing in light, even when it flickers?"
Janna turned, the light catching the outline of her face—calm but furrowed. "And yet you don't."
Soraka looked away. "No. I don't."
"I did."
That admission stung more than she expected.
"I did trust him. After Syndra belittled me, he listened. When no one else saw the exhaustion in my face... he saw me."
She walked across the room and sat beside Soraka, keeping her voice low, even though no one else was awake.
"He was kind. Gentle. Human. But that was three years ago. And I don't know if that part of him still exists."
"It does," Soraka said softly. "I've seen glimpses. In his eyes. In the way he talks to Lux and Jinx."
"Exactly," Janna replied. "Them."
They fell into silence again.
No words could patch the fractures between fear and guilt, between the person Peter had been and the person he was now. They had hoped—naively—that time would give them clarity. That distance would shield them from confrontation.
But in the corners of their minds, they knew.
Peter wasn't the type to let something fester. He tolerated disrespect only so long. And what they had done—this consistent, deliberate avoidance—wasn't just passive. It was a statement.
One they hadn't spoken aloud.
But one he surely read.
"What if we're wrong?" she asked.
Janna blinked.
"What if he really is trying to help us?" Soraka continued, voice wavering. "What if all that... darkness around him, the obsession, the manipulation—what if it's not malice, but pain?"
Janna's answer came slower than before. "Then we're still responsible for letting it rot."
Soraka closed her eyes. "We should apologize."
"Would it even matter at this point?"
"Maybe not. But... I want to say it anyway. Before he gives up on us completely."
Janna didn't say it, but the thought hit her hard:What if it's already too late?
Present time
The weight in the apartment changed long before the sound did.
It began like a pressure—an invisible gravity that settled across the walls, the floors, the air itself. Everything slowed, like the city had taken a breath and forgotten to let it go. The lights buzzed faintly. The moon outside seemed to pale.
Then the door shattered.
A thunderous crack echoed through the apartment as the front entrance was torn from its hinges. Wood splintered. Metal bent. The sound wasn't just loud—it was final. A declaration.
Lulu screamed from her room.
Poppy bolted upright, heart pounding, already gripping her hammer before she was fully awake.
Lux and Jinx, tangled in half-sleep, were the first to feel it. Not the noise, not the impact—but the aura. That suffocating, familiar darkness twisting with something older. Hungrier.
They were out of bed in seconds.
When they reached the hallway, he was already standing in the wreckage.
Peter.
But not the Peter they remembered.
The black-and-red Iron Spider suit crawled over his body like liquid metal, glistening in threads of crimson and shadow. Tendrils shimmered and snapped across his limbs as if barely containing the force beneath.
His eyes glowed—pure white, narrowed, unblinking. His chest rose and fell in slow, controlled intervals, but the air around him steamed from the heat of what he was holding back.
He didn't speak at first.
And then he did.
The voice that came out wasn't just his.
It was distorted—dual-toned, symbiotic.
"Where are they."
Not a question. A verdict.
Lux froze, throat tightening.
Jinx stood beside her, biting her lip, uncertain if speaking would make it worse—or better.
They didn't answer. They pointed. Down the hallway.
Peter nodded once. "Good girls."
He walked past them without hesitation.
The floor seemed to ripple with each step.
Jinx and Lux barely breathed as he brushed by. Not because they feared him—but because they knew him. And what they felt coming off of him wasn't just anger.
It was betrayal.
They'd seen him annoyed before. But this... this was the side of him no one was supposed to see.
The part that broke doors in half without a thought.
The part that didn't raise his voice—because he didn't need to.
Poppy stepped into the hallway, hammer raised.
"What the hell is going on—" she started, before stopping mid-sentence.
Peter didn't look at her. He didn't need to.
The moment their eyes met, her grip faltered. The pressure of his aura hit her like a wall. Her hammer felt heavier. Her breathing shallowed.
"I'm not here for you," he said, his voice flat. "Move."
Poppy held her ground for a heartbeat. Then two.
But her instincts betrayed her. She stepped aside.
He didn't even look back.
Further down the hall, Lulu peeked nervously out from her door, shaking.
Peter slowed only slightly when he passed her. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't glare.
"I'm going to waste a lot of energy in that room."
His tone was tired now. Quiet.
"Make food."
Lulu hesitated. "Y-Yes, Peter."
He gave her a slight nod. "Thank you."
That was it.
No cruelty. No praise. Just expectation.
She rushed off to the kitchen, trying not to trip over her own feet.
Back in the hallway, Peter came to a stop outside the door at the end.
Janna's room.
He didn't knock.
He didn't pause.
He simply placed a hand on the doorknob, and with a soft twist, he unlocked it.
As the door creaked open, the air shifted.
Reality folded around him.
With a snap of his fingers, time and space bent inward—separating the room from the rest of the apartment.
No one outside would hear what came next.
Inside, Janna and Soraka were already waiting.
Both in uniform.
Both standing.
Both trying to look ready.
But they weren't.
Not for this.
Not for him.
Not anymore.
he moment Peter crossed the threshold, the walls folded in on themselves.
A whisper of reality peeling away. Space curled at the edges, warping like the room had been submerged underwater, then flash-frozen in place. The air didn't move. The floor beneath them stopped vibrating. Even time seemed to lock its breath in its throat.
Outside the door, the world had gone mute.
Inside... the world was about to burn.
Peter stood in the middle of the room—neither moving nor speaking. The black-red Iron Spider symbiote pulsed along his arms and neck, alive with his heartbeat, twitching like it was waiting for permission to lash out.
Janna stood on one side, arms folded but stiff. She didn't say anything yet, though her shoulders were high, tense. Not ready for battle, but bracing for a storm.
Soraka lingered near the edge of the room, posture guarded but steady. Her eyes flicked between Peter and the shifting walls around them—recognizing instantly what he'd done.
Guardian warping. Dimensional sealing. Complete temporal severance from the main timeline.
This wasn't a talk. This was judgment.
"I suppose this is about us," Janna said at last, voice even.
Peter didn't answer.
Soraka stepped forward. "Peter, listen—"
"I have listened," he snapped.
His voice cracked like a whip, louder than it had any right to be. The echo hit the walls and bounced in unnatural patterns, vibrating through the bones.
They both went quiet.
Peter slowly raised his head. His eyes weren't glowing—they were burning. Not with heat. With insulted fury.
"You two," he said, voice low again. "Have been avoiding me. Ducking around corners. Leaving rooms when I enter. Pretending I don't exist. After everything."
"Peter, we didn't mean—" Janna began, but he cut her off again.
"Don't lie."
He took a step forward. Neither of them moved.
"Do you know what I've been doing?" he asked, tone shifting—almost rhetorical, like he already knew the answer and just wanted to see them squirm.
"I fought Riku and Aqua at a ruined Dimension. Not versions of them. The versions. Prime. Wielding power cosmic, driven insane by a Dark corruption that mutated their personalities into living paradoxes. I fought them for hours. Alone."
His voice sharpened.
"I destroyed Aqua's body with my bare hands after she tried to use a spell equivalent to the Tera Flare to erase another dimension. Do you understand what that means? Do you know what that takes from a person? And then I erased Riku. ERASED him."
A beat. A blink. The pain bled into the room now.
"And then I found Neeko. I rescued your precious teammate. Not just from the Dark. From a cage left behind by a weapon so unstable it shouldn't exist in this narrative plane."
His hands shook—not with fear, but restraint.
"And still, you look at me like I'm the threat."
"Peter—" Soraka said gently.
"I'm not done." he growled.
He turned his back, pacing now. His symbiote dragged across the floor like tendrils behind a cloak. The walls shimmered brighter, responding to his rising energy.
"You don't get it. You've never gotten it. And maybe you can't. Because your lives—your pretty little cosmic schoolgirl lives—are linear. They make sense. You fight monsters. You cry. You grow. You have each other."
He spun back, voice rising now.
"I don't get that luxury. I don't have an arc. I fix them."
Another step forward.
"Do you know what it's like being the janitor of fiction? Cleaning up storylines that don't even remember you were there? Do you know how many times I've watched worlds collapse because I blinked too slow?"
The mask rippled over his jaw, pulled back slightly—revealing tired eyes and a clenched mouth.
"Let me tell you a story."
The tone changed—mockingly casual now. But no one was fooled.
"There was a universe, deep in the forgotten sectors of metafiction. Where the League multiverse accidentally bled into a corrupted version of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream." His eyes narrowed. "A Dark fused the realities together. I had to go in and fix it."
He laughed—a hollow, bitter sound.
"Eighty years. Eighty. That's how long I was trapped inside AM's body. That AI made of hatred? It kept me there. Tortured me. Conceptually rewired my thoughts, my memories. I was going FUCKING INSANE!"
Neither Janna nor Soraka spoke.
"I was sexually harassed by a person I was protecting. I had to take care of a grown man whose brain had been melted into caveman goo. I listened to AM scream inside my skull every day until silence hurt more than sound."
His voice trembled—not with weakness, but with the pressure of holding back.
"And when I finally broke out—when I reset the dimension and cleaned the lore corruption—you know what I got?"
He held out his arms like he was presenting something to an invisible crowd.
"Nothing. No applause. No thank-you. No memory of me. The story moved on. No one even knew it had been broken."
His hands dropped.
"My reward is silence. Oblivion."
He locked eyes with Janna.
"You think I'm changing? That I'm not the man who comforted you that day Syndra hurt you?"
His jaw clenched, voice shaking now. "I am that man. But he's tired. He's buried under centuries of blood and failure and masks."
He turned to Soraka.
"You think I'm dangerous? Maybe I am. But only because I'm exhausted. Because every time I try to help, you treat me like a loaded gun."
The symbiote flared along his arms again. The room darkened slightly, as if feeding on his rage.
"Do you know what it's like to be rejected by the people you protect? To see gratitude in their eyes for a second—and then watch it twist into fear?"
He took a breath. A real one. Shaky. Unsteady.
"Even before I came here tonight, I was repairing rifts in narrative structure. You felt the tremors, didn't you? Time bleeding. Memories fracturing. I fixed that before it became a paradox cascade. You don't even know."
He stepped even closer now. Just feet from them.
"I'm not asking for worship. I'm not asking for praise. I just wanted acknowledgment. For once."
Then his voice broke.
"And instead... I get treated like the fucking villain."
The silence that followed was different from before.
It wasn't tense. It wasn't charged.
It was personal.
The room breathed with him. The walls pulsed with his pain. And in that moment, Peter Parker wasn't a god. He wasn't a Guardian. He wasn't even Spider-Man.
He was a man screaming to be heard in a universe that had long since gone deaf.
And neither Janna nor Soraka had the words to fix that.
Not yet.
The air inside the sealed dimension crackled like static—alive with emotion, trembling with pressure.
Peter stood in the center of the warped room like a storm that had given itself form. The space bent around his feet, curling inward like a gravitational sink. The symbiote was nearly silent now, no longer twitching or boiling with rage—it was calm, waiting, anticipating.
Across from him, Soraka and Janna remained motionless. Both could feel it.
He wasn't here to be heard anymore.
He was here to be obeyed.
Still, Janna took a small step forward. Her long purple hair shifted with her movement, the violet hue of her uniform dim under the distortion field. She raised her voice gently, even though it trembled at the edge.
"Peter..." she began, eyes fixed on his, "the man I knew—the one who comforted me... who told me I could come to him if I ever needed peace... That Peter would never say the things you just did."
Peter didn't flinch. He didn't blink. He just stared.
Janna's breath caught. But she kept going.
"I'm not saying you haven't suffered. I know you have. I felt it when you looked at me that day on the field. When you said you were tired. That you were alone. That you'd been through things none of us could understand..."
Her voice broke for a moment. "I believed you."
She lowered her hands slightly, pleading now.
"But this? Cornering us. Threatening. Using your powers to isolate us. This isn't you. This is something else. Something poisoning you."
Peter blinked once. Slowly.
Soraka stepped in now, placing herself next to Janna, her hands raised—not to cast, but to calm.
"I've always been attuned to cosmic flow," she said softly, her voice a melody under pressure. "And I've always tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. Even when others didn't. Even when Ezreal told us to be cautious. Even when Ahri hesitated."
She exhaled.
"But I feel it, Peter. Like a pulse behind your words. Like a signal buried under noise. You're not right. This energy coming off you—it's wrong. It's loud. And it's dangerous."
Peter scoffed. Quietly. The bitterness returned to his face like a shadow creeping up from below.
"Dangerous," he echoed, flat.
Soraka hesitated.
"You're afraid of me," he said.
"Not just you," she admitted. "What's latched onto you. What's feeding you."
He took a step forward. Neither girl backed away—but they braced.
"You think the symbiote made me like this?" Peter asked, his tone cool now, almost curious.
Janna nodded slowly. "It's changing you."
"No," Peter replied, voice steady. "You changed me."
He let the words hang in the room like a blade.
"You think I fell into this because of the symbiote? Because of what? Darkness? Temptation? Corruption?"
He laughed, quietly. But there was no joy in it. No life.
"I became like this because every time I tried to be good, someone punished me for it. I put my soul on the line to help people—and they spat on it. Questioned it. Left me behind."
His eyes flicked between the two of them.
"I gave you Neeko. I gave Ahri peace. I gave Sarah—a woman who suffered from guilt—closure. And you two?" His expression twisted, voice turning cold and sharp. "You turned your backs. Not because I did something wrong. But because it was easier."
Janna opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it.
"No. Don't say you were confused. Don't tell me you were scared. Don't say you didn't know how to help."
His voice dropped lower now—harsher, gritted through teeth.
"You made me this way."
That silenced the room. Even the flickering glow of Guardian magic seemed to dim.
"You think I wanted this?" he continued. "You think I wanted to feel like I'm made of knives and fire every time I walk into a room? You think I wanted to hurt people just by being present?"
He looked at Janna again, softer, but not gentler.
"I reached out to you. I comforted you. I trusted you. I consoled you."
Then to Soraka.
"I defended you. Protected you. Risked myself more than once just so you'd be safe."
His hands dropped to his sides. Loose. Empty. But the power behind his words struck harder than any spell.
"And still, you look at me like a monster."
Soraka shook her head, tearfully. "We were scared—"
"And I'm not?" Peter barked, eyes flaring with a sudden flash of red.
"I'm scared every second I exist. Because I know one mistake—one—and the entire narrative collapses. You think this universe is stable? It's held together with tape and denial. Every second, Darks gnaw at the borders. Timelines bleed into each other. Plot holes open like sinkholes."
He took a slow breath, calming again—but the calm was worse. It was controlled.
"I don't get to rest. I don't get to cry. I don't get to be broken. Because if I do, something dies. Somewhere."
He paused.
"And you—you made me choose between breaking... or becoming this."
A long silence. Not a single breath moved the room.
Then Peter's face shifted.
Not pain. Not rage.
Something worse.
Conviction.
"I'm tired of asking for understanding," he said quietly.
Janna's heart skipped. "What does that mean?"
He looked up at them. Eyes like voids. Empty of empathy, full of purpose.
"It means if you won't listen... I'll make you understand."
Time unraveled in threads of magic and memory as the sealed room trembled with pressure—cracks of light running across the ceiling like divine veins.
Peter didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
He raised his hand slowly, fingers bent like a puppeteer preparing to pull threads. And then—
A tendril of black webbing slithered free from his wrist, glistening with oily reflection. It coiled, almost curious, before straightening midair and shooting toward Soraka.
Janna reacted—but it didn't matter.
She raised her arm. A gale of wind exploded outward, compressed and sharpened to shred through barriers, Voidlings, even the strongest magical entities. It hit Peter square in the chest.
And did nothing.
Not a flinch. Not a skid. He didn't even blink. His mere existence repelled the elemental force like static brushing against a cosmic wall.
Janna froze.
"So," Peter said softly, almost mockingly, "you've chosen to resist."
She bared her teeth. "You've left us no choice."
Peter's eyes glowed—not with light, but with weight. Red veined with darkness. Electric lines lit beneath his skin like circuitry tracing through a divine machine. The symbiote hissed as it peeled into armor plates and blade-like extensions across his body.
This wasn't a battle.
This was an execution.
Janna's winds screamed around her like a cyclone—but Peter's presence alone began unraveling her spells. The laws of magic bent in his direction. Her gusts stuttered, flickered, collapsed.
Soraka lifted her staff. Her magic, pure and celestial, blazed with sacred starlight. She summoned a ward of celestial protection over Janna, layering a star-bound circle between them and Peter.
He didn't walk.
He blinked.
One moment he was across the room. The next—he was in front of Soraka.
She gasped. The symbiote tendrils lashed around her like thorns, not striking, just holding—freezing her in place.
"I asked," Peter said, voice layered, warped. "I begged. I warned."
The symbiote reacted to his pain. It twitched, as if grieving on his behalf.
"You never listened."
The first droplet formed. Oily, thick, and vibrating with foreign memory.
Janna shouted, wind bursting forward like a war drum.
But Peter extended his hand lazily, and the wind stopped midair—held in a stasis field of narrative resistance. The gust spiraled uselessly before shattering like broken glass.
He turned back to Soraka.
"You're going to see it now."
The droplet surged toward her head.
And still—Soraka resisted. She screamed as her own starlight magic erupted defensively, burning against the symbiote's proximity. The two forces clashed in pure silence—conceptual warfare on a microscopic level.
But Peter didn't flinch. He allowed the resistance. Let her believe she had a chance.
Then—he blinked her light out.
Her ward cracked, then shattered. One tendril, invisible to all but cosmic sight, pierced through her shield and embedded the droplet in her neck.
She collapsed, body spasming. Not unconscious. Worse.
Infected.
Janna rushed to her, but her foot caught in place.
She looked down.
Webbing.
Thick, red-black, narralith-enforced strands wrapped her ankle and pulled—yanking her toward Peter like a fly caught in a story she never wrote.
She twisted, summoned a whirlwind of desperation, and struck Peter directly in the face.
His head moved back slightly.
That was all.
No injury. No stagger. Just acknowledgment.
He turned toward her with a patience that made her breath catch.
"I asked for your trust," he said. "You gave me silence."
She struck again—wind and steel merged, her fist laced with magical enhancement.
Peter caught it.
He let her hang there, suspended in front of him. His eyes scanned hers.
"Pain makes prophets out of monsters."
The second droplet formed.
Janna's panic erupted into a final storm—her greatest defense: A rotational barrier, layered with sacred air and starlight reinforcement, capable of holding back entire meteor storms.
Peter raised a hand.
His aura alone shredded the outer layers.
Her barrier popped like a balloon under a boot.
He didn't even need to touch her.
She dropped to her knees.
The droplet hovered. Her mind fought—fought with all the years of training, love, conviction.
And Peter just watched.
"You're not weak," he said. "But you were wrong. About me. About everything."
The symbiote trembled above her, reading her thoughts. Her fears. Her lingering affection. Her confusion.
"Let me rewrite that."
It sank into her.
Janna screamed.
Magic exploded from her back—turbulent, golden-green air clashing with Peter's web of influence. Her aura flickered violently, trying to erase the infection. But the symbiote wasn't just physical.
It was a concept. A parasite of narrative authority.
And Peter was the authority.
Janna's mind bent under the weight of that command. Memories twisted. Her earliest moments with Peter—his smile, his gentleness—morphed into darker shapes. Still beautiful, but haunting. Still kind, but worshipful. She couldn't parse it.
She couldn't stop it.
Soraka clutched the ground beside her, tears falling as the black lines spread across her neck and shoulders. Her magic pulsed weakly in resistance, but each flare was met with stronger suppression.
Peter watched it all.
No joy. No regret.
Only finality.
"I didn't want this," he said. "But I need it."
As the room flickered around them—its walls bleeding into reality from the pressure of such raw influence—he stood between them.
One girl twitching. The other paralyzed in silence.
Two minds once full of judgment, now shattered beneath the truth of him.
He turned away at last.
"Sleep."
And with that single command, both Janna and Soraka slumped into unconsciousness—gracefully, quietly, like dolls being set down after play.
The room sealed behind him.
And the web continued spinning.
Peter exhaled slowly, the symbiote retracting slightly along his jawline. His fingers flexed once, settling into position for a snap that would unmake the room's isolation and restore it to Lux's apartment.
But before he could close the gap between thumb and middle finger…
He stopped.
His head turned—slow, deliberate—toward the far corner of the room. At first there was nothing but a haze of dim light and warped space. Then the static began to bleed through, a flicker at the edge of perception, until a figure emerged from it.
She stood there like a ghost caught between frequencies—half-formed, half-forgotten. Her outline bled into the air, jagged with interference. The static crawled across her shape in uneven pulses, swallowing details, spitting them back out wrong.
Her mouth curved upward into a faint, unsettling smile. Her eyes were lost in the distortion, but he could feel them on him.
Peter didn't know her name. Didn't know why the sight of her dug into his chest like a blade. But somewhere, buried deep in his forgotten mind, something inside him recognized her—and recoiled at the memory it couldn't fully grasp.
His voice was quiet, flat."…What the hell is so funny?"
The silhouette tilted her head, the static bending with her like warped glass. "Nothing," she said, voice layered with the faint buzz of a broken speaker. "Just laughing at how you handled things."
Peter's eyes narrowed. "Meaning?"
"Meaning you're so predictable it's tragic," she said.
"Speak plainly."
"You're afraid," she said without hesitation. "Afraid of being rejected. Afraid of being betrayed. Afraid of being alone. Afraid that no one will ever really love you."
Peter's gaze hardened, but he said nothing.
She stepped closer—not that her body became any clearer. The distortion only deepened, keeping her face locked behind a veil of glitching static. "You drag survivor's guilt behind you like a chain. You lived when your entire reality died. And you've been punishing yourself for it ever since."
The symbiote twitched along Peter's shoulders, sensing the shift in his mood.
Her voice softened, though the words cut sharper. "And then there's that place. AM's world."
The air seemed to grow heavier.
"You were torn apart there," she continued. "Day after day. Your mind, your body, your will—broken down, rebuilt wrong, broken again. You survived, but not whole. Not really."
Peter's voice was low. "And?"
"And now you don't even know if what you're doing is right," she said. "You hide behind 'getting the job done' because if you stopped to think about it, you might realize you've been wrong all along."
Peter's tone sharpened. "Don't question me."
"I'm not questioning," she replied, almost gently. "I'm pointing out the truth."
His glare deepened. "Same thing."
"You'd rather be feared than risk being abandoned," she said. "You'd rather burn bridges than watch someone walk away first."
His hand lowered from snapping position, curling into a fist.
"You don't care if they call you a hero or a villain," she pressed on. "Because it's not about that. It's about control. And the second you lose it…" Her smile widened just enough to make the static shiver. "You're back there again. Alone. Powerless. Waiting for the next knife in the back."
Peter's jaw clenched.
And then, softer, more deliberate than before:"Are you sure this isn't just about the fear of betrayal?"
Peter said nothing.
The symbiote stirred like a living shadow over his frame, and without another word, he turned away from her—fingers rising again.
This time, he was ready to snap his fingers.
Peter raised his hand again, thumb and middle finger brushing. The dimensional weave in the room was ready to be undone—ready to return to Lux's apartment.
But just before the snap… he stopped.
His eyes shifted.
Not toward Chrona's silhouette. Not toward Janna or Soraka.
Toward me.
The words that had been shaping the moment stopped. The air between sentences went hollow. The description fell away until there was nothing left but the fact of us, staring at each other.
"…What the hell are you looking at?" I asked.
"You're giving me that look," Peter said.
I tilted my head. "What look?"
"That one," he said flatly. "Like you've already decided something about me."
"I haven't decided anything," I replied. "I'm just doing my job."
Peter's gaze didn't shift. "Don't look at me like that."
A smile almost crept into my voice. "What, like an abuser?"
His jaw tightened. "You think you're clever."
"I think I'm accurate."
The static form of Chrona shifted behind him, her voice filtering in like a badly tuned signal. "He hasn't even done anything. I don't know why just a look is setting you off."
Peter's fingers twitched at his sides. The symbiote rippled, subtle but restless. "I said stop looking at me like that."
I stepped forward. Not figuratively. Into the scene. My shoes met the floor with the same weight as his. I could feel the heat radiating off him, the tension spiraling under his skin.
"You're getting worked up over nothing," I said.
Peter's breath came sharper. "Nothing? You've been watching me—commenting, judging, pushing buttons. Don't pretend you're neutral."
"I'm telling the story," I said. "If that bothers you, maybe it's because you don't like the story you're making."
His head lowered, the symbiote creeping up over the side of his face like a black tide. "Watch it."
"I am."
Chrona's distortion-laced chuckle scraped the air. "He's so easy to get riled up."
Peter's head snapped toward her. "Shut up." Then back to me. "And you—stop acting like you know me."
I held his stare. "I don't have to know you to see what's right in front of me."
"And what's that?" he demanded.
"That you're becoming the thing you swore to destroy," I said.
For the first time, he didn't immediately fire back.
His eyes flickered, a muscle in his jaw tightening. The silence between us stretched, taut as wire.
I took a half step back—not retreat, just resuming my place outside the scene. "That's all. Now… let me finish my work. Don't interrupt me again."
Peter's stare didn't waver. The heat behind it sharpened, the kind that made rooms feel smaller.
That was the match.
The symbiote flexed over his shoulders like an animal baring its teeth. "Your job? Your job is to stand there and talk, isn't it?" Peter's voice was low, venom-soaked. "Hide behind words while you poke and prod like some smug parasite who's never bled for anything."
I said nothing.
"You think you've got me figured out because you've been watching? You haven't seen anything. You weren't there when I was dragged through worlds that tore me apart molecule by molecule. You didn't watch everything I loved get ripped away. You didn't hear the screams when my universe burned."
Still, I stayed quiet.
"And you—" his voice rose, cracking with the strain, "—you stand there and pretend you're above it all. Pretend you're some kind of impartial hand guiding the story. But you're not guiding anything. You're just another coward throwing stones from a safe distance."
The black veins of the symbiote pulsed brighter, feeding on the rage.
"You like this, don't you? Waiting for me to snap so you can write it down and make me look like the villain. I see it in your face."
I let him go on.
"Go ahead, keep smirking. Keep hiding behind that omniscient tone. You wouldn't last five seconds in my place. You'd break before you even saw the worst of it. But me? I'm still here. Still breathing. Still doing what needs to be done while you—" he jabbed a finger toward me "—sit there and judge."
The words came faster now, tumbling over themselves. "You're a parasite. A leech. A snake that's never had to crawl through the mud. And when this is over—when I'm done fixing this mess—you'll still be nothing. Just a voice."
He stopped. Chest heaving. The symbiote's tendrils slowly curled back against him like the draw of a tide.
I waited a beat, letting the air cool. Then, calmly: "You done?"
Peter's breath was still heavy, but he didn't answer.
"Good," I said. And without looking at him, I went back to narrating—tone steady, dismissive, as if his tirade hadn't happened.
From behind him, the silhouette's smile lingered for a heartbeat longer. She didn't speak. She didn't need to.
Peter glanced over his shoulder just as she began to fade, the distortion swallowing her shape.
He turned back toward me. "Coward," he muttered.
Then he snapped his fingers.
The room cracked like glass, the separate dimension folding inward until it collapsed entirely—depositing them back into Lux's apartment as if nothing had happened.
From the other side of the door came a small, hesitant voice."Um… the snack you asked for… it's ready."
Lulu.
Peter didn't answer. His hand was pressed to the side of his head, fingers clawing at his temple as if he could dig something out.
The noise started as a faint hiss—then became a shriek.
"HATE! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE—"
It was everywhere, nowhere, rattling his skull like shrapnel. His surroundings dissolved into a dull, distant blur, sound replaced by that jagged mantra stabbing into him again and again. It wasn't Janna's voice. It wasn't Soraka's. It wasn't anyone's. Just raw, concentrated venom from something deep in the fractures of his mind.
He stayed like that, hunched over, eyes bloodshot, breath coming in short bursts.
Survivor's guilt.The words rose unbidden.
The images followed—whole realities burning to nothing. Faces disintegrating into stardust. The void left behind. The one who erased it all: Astra Regulator Thanos. A force so absolute that even the highest planes of existence had turned silent at his approach. And Peter… he'd lived.
Not because he deserved it.
Because the universe was cruel enough to leave him standing.
Only the other surviving Guardians understood that feeling—the Darks too, though their understanding came twisted and wrong. No 3D fictional character could grasp it. Not Lux. Not Jinx. Not even Janna, for all her calm wisdom. They could play at empathy, but they would never know.
The voice in his skull laughed at that.
Peter's jaw tightened.
Stop.
The shrieking didn't care.
Stop.
His breathing slowed. The sound began to fade, the words stretching thin until they vanished entirely, leaving the same stale silence he'd walked in with.
Peter straightened, his eyes dull now—not calm, but emptied. The tension in his shoulders remained, but the visible edge of it had been buried again, where no one else could reach.
He unlocked the door, stepped into the hall, and found Lulu standing there exactly where she'd been, hands folded in front of her. She flinched when he looked at her, but didn't move.
"Where's the food?"
She nodded quickly, turning to guide him without another word.
Peter stepped out of the hall, Lulu keeping pace just ahead of him. She didn't speak, only cast quick, uncertain glances over her shoulder as she led him to the kitchen. Her steps were slow, deliberate—as though speeding up might draw his attention the wrong way.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the air changed.
The kitchen lights felt too bright against the dimness of the hall. At the table sat Lux, Jinx, and Poppy. They weren't talking. They weren't even pretending to be casual.
Lux's expression was tight, her hands folded in her lap, eyes flicking up at him like she was trying to gauge whether it was safe to move.
Jinx leaned back in her chair, but her eyes were locked on him—sharp, assessing. No smirk this time.
Poppy's jaw was set, her gaze unflinching. She didn't hide the fact that she was watching him.
The table itself looked untouched, save for the plate waiting for him.
Lulu moved to the counter, gesturing to the food. "Here." Her voice was small.
Peter gave a short nod. "Thanks." He glanced at Jinx. "You too."
Neither of them answered.
He pulled out the chair and sat down, taking a bite without looking up. The sound of chewing filled the silence more than it should have.
Lux moved first. She reached out, her hand brushing between his shoulder blades.
He tensed instantly—shoulders locking, muscles coiling.
Her hand stilled, but she didn't pull away. Gradually, he let the tension go, leaning forward slightly until the stiffness bled out of his frame.
No one spoke.
Jinx tapped her fingers against her leg under the table. Poppy's eyes shifted briefly to Lux's hand before returning to him. Lulu hovered at the counter, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
The silence felt like it was waiting for someone to break it. Every glance, every small movement seemed to carry the question: Who's going to speak first?
Peter kept eating.
Lux's hand lingered on his back, hesitant. "So… are you okay now?" Her voice was soft, cautious.
Peter didn't look up from his plate. "I'm fine now." The words came out flat, stripped of any real weight.
Jinx leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. "Fine-fine, or just saying that so we'll shut up?"
"Fine," he repeated, tone unchanged.
A pause.
Poppy's voice cut through it—steady, but edged. "Where are Janna and Soraka?"
Peter's chewing slowed. He swallowed, still not meeting her eyes. "We talked. They're asleep."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Poppy's brow furrowed. "Asleep because they were tired, or asleep because you made them?"
Peter set his fork down, finally glancing up. "Does it matter? They're fine."
"It matters if—"
"Poppy." Lulu's voice broke in from the counter. Quiet, but firm.
Poppy turned to her, surprised. "What?"
"Stop," Lulu said, still not meeting her gaze.
Poppy blinked. Lulu never told her to back off. Not like that.
Peter went back to his food.
Poppy didn't. "You're just going to let that slide?" she asked Lulu.
"Yes."
Shock flickered across Poppy's face, sharp and visible. "Lulu, what the—"
"I said stop," Lulu repeated, a little louder this time.
The words hung there.
Poppy's jaw worked, but she didn't answer. She pushed back her chair, the scrape loud in the silence. Without another word, she left the kitchen, her boots hitting the floor harder than necessary.
She walked past the splinters of the apartments door and left.
The quiet she left behind felt heavier.
No one moved.
Peter kept eating, but every bite felt heavier, slower. His focus wasn't on the food—it was on the echo in his head, the familiar, festering emptiness gnawing through thought after thought. It had been creeping in since before he left Janna's room, and now it was here in full.
The kind of weight that made everything feel muted.
Lux watched him, fingers curled around her mug, as if holding it tighter would steady her. Lulu stayed by the counter, still, small, eyes darting between the three of them. Jinx leaned back in her chair, the usual restless bounce gone from her leg.
The air was thick enough to choke on.
Peter didn't speak. He didn't want to. The symbiote murmured at the edge of his awareness, low and steady, almost blending into the static hum in his skull.
No one gets it. No one ever will.
They wouldn't understand losing an entire reality to Astra Regulator Thanos. They wouldn't understand the centuries of carrying that loss in silence. They couldn't. They were still just… stories. Three-dimensional shapes trapped in a world with limits.
He glanced up. Lulu was staring at him, then quickly looked away. Lux tried for a small smile when their eyes met, but it faltered too quickly to mean anything. Jinx's gaze lingered, sharp but unreadable.
He lowered his head again.
Something had shifted. He could feel it in the way they looked at him—not just fear, but something quieter, harder to pin down.
A fracture in the glass.
No one dared to speak.
And Peter… didn't care to fill the silence.
He set the fork down, letting the scrape of metal against porcelain fill the room for half a second. "Lux. Jinx." His voice was even, but it felt… drained. "Come with me to my place. I don't want to be alone tonight."
Jinx was the first to react—head tilting, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Aww, the big scary Guardian wants company?" The tease was light, but her eyes didn't match her tone. They were searching him, reading the edges of something she couldn't quite place.
Lux didn't hesitate. "Okay," she said softly, almost before he'd finished speaking. No smile this time, no attempt to make it lighter. Just quiet agreement, like she'd been waiting for him to ask.
He rose from the table, and the two followed without another word. Lulu's gaze trailed them to the door, but she didn't speak.
The night air was cooler than expected, brushing against Peter's face in a way that felt almost unreal. The city was quieter in this part of town, just the occasional hum of traffic in the distance.
They walked.
Jinx slipped into step beside him, bumping her shoulder lightly into his arm. "So," she started, the usual swagger in her voice muted, "what's with the sudden invite? Not that I'm complaining—"
Peter's answer was flat, his eyes forward. "Just didn't want to be alone."
She tried again, a little more careful this time. "Rough night?"
"Something like that."
It was the kind of conversation where the words existed because they had to, not because he wanted to give them. Each answer landed with the weight of obligation, not openness.
Lux, walking on his other side, picked up on it faster than Jinx did. "Jinx," she murmured, "maybe just… don't push right now."
Jinx looked over at her, brows knitting. She glanced back at Peter—his eyes were distant, empty in a way that made her chest tighten. "…Yeah. Got it."
For a while, the only sound was the shuffle of shoes on pavement.
Then Jinx reached out, slipping her hand into his without a word. Lux did the same on the other side. He didn't look at them, but he didn't pull away either.
By the time they reached his apartment, the air between them was thick with unspoken things.
Peter unlocked the door and stepped inside first. The place was exactly as he'd left it—more lab than living space, shelves lined with tools, parts, scraps of half-built projects. The hum of equipment filled the background like a steady heartbeat.
He didn't bother with the lights beyond what was already on. Just crossed the room, kicked off his shoes, and dropped onto the bed face-first.
"I'm gonna use the bathroom," Lux said softly, heading down the short hallway.
Jinx stayed, leaning against the doorframe for a moment before stepping inside. She glanced at him sprawled on the bed, then crossed her arms. "You should change. Those clothes look like they've been through hell tonight."
He didn't move.
The black surface of the symbiote rippled across his body, liquid and seamless, reforming into loose, dark pajama pants and a plain shirt in the space of a heartbeat.
Jinx blinked at the transformation, but didn't comment. She'd seen stranger.
"Guess that works," she muttered, though her eyes stayed on him a moment longer than necessary.
For a few moments after the symbiote reshaped his clothes, the room was quiet—just the faint hum of his equipment in the background.
Then Jinx heard it.
It wasn't loud, not even close. If she hadn't been standing this close, she might have missed it completely. But the sound still caught her like a punch to the ribs—soft, uneven breaths breaking in the middle.
Crying.
Her brain stalled.
In three years of knowing him—three years of watching him walk through hell with a straight back and cold eyes—Jinx had never once heard Peter cry. She'd seen him angry, smug, quiet, calculating… but never this.
Her arms dropped from where they'd been crossed. She stared at him, face buried into the pillow, shoulders faintly shifting with each breath.
"...Shit," she muttered under her breath, not at him, but at the sight of it. Something in her chest tightened and refused to let go.
Her first instinct was to demand what was wrong, shake it out of him if she had to—but she knew better. Peter didn't answer questions when he was like this. And this… this was worse than she'd ever seen.
She made her choice in an instant.
Jinx pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room, boots soft against the floor. She didn't bother asking if she could—just climbed onto the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight.
Peter didn't move.
She slid closer until her side pressed into his, then wrapped an arm around him and pulled herself in. The faint scent of his shirt hit her—warm fabric, metal, and something sharper buried underneath.
"Hey," she said quietly, almost like she was talking to a wounded animal. "It's fine. I'm here."
He didn't answer. His breaths were still shaky, still breaking.
She rested her forehead against the side of his neck, the edge of her hair clips lightly bumping his jaw before she took them off, letting her hair flow like water in the bed. Her free hand found the blanket at the end of the bed and tugged it over them both.
Peter's hand twitched, as if he wasn't sure whether to push her away or hold on.
So she made the decision for him—hooking her leg lightly over his, keeping him there without pressure.
"No questions," she murmured, her voice low and certain. "Not tonight. Just… stay like this."
His shoulders shifted again, but this time it wasn't a sob—just a small, tired exhale.
She felt his body heat seep into her, felt the faint, uneven thump of his heartbeat against her forehead. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was cataloguing every detail, the way she always did—except this time, it wasn't to make a joke later. It was because she wanted to remember exactly how he felt when he finally let himself break.
After a minute, she adjusted the blanket so it was tucked under his chin. She'd never admit it out loud, but she liked the way his hair brushed against her face like this.
From the outside, someone might've called it cute—two people curled together in the low light, quiet and close. But the weight behind it made the air feel heavy.
She didn't say anything else. Didn't try to force him into talking. Just held him a little tighter, as if she could keep whatever was breaking inside him from spilling out any further.
The bathroom door opened with a faint click, steam curling out in lazy wisps. Lux stepped out, toweling her hair, ready to ask if Jinx had found a blanket yet.
The words caught in her throat.
Peter was lying face-down on the bed, Jinx curled tightly against him, one arm across his chest and her forehead buried in his neck. The blanket was pulled up to his shoulders.
And even without hearing it, Lux could see it in the way his back rose and fell—too fast, too uneven.
Her towel slipped from her hand to the floor.
She crossed the room in two steps, dropping to her knees beside the bed. Her hand went straight to his face, brushing back hair damp with sweat.
"Hey," she whispered, voice catching at the edges. "Peter, it's okay. I'm here."
His eyes stayed shut, but his jaw clenched at her touch.
Lux glanced up at Jinx, whose gaze was sharp and tense—but she gave a tiny nod, wordlessly making room. Lux slid onto the mattress, tucking herself against his other side so that they were holding him between them.
"Don't try to talk," Lux murmured, her thumb sweeping slow circles across his cheekbone. "Just… let us be here with you."
Jinx didn't speak either, but her hand shifted lower, finding his and lacing their fingers together beneath the blanket.
Peter's breaths hitched again, but they weren't as sharp this time. His hands—tense and still moments ago—moved hesitantly, one finding the back of Lux's sweater, the other curling into Jinx's sleeve.
Like anchors.
The three of them stayed there in silence, only the hum of the apartment filling the space.
Lux tilted her head to rest against his temple, her hair brushing his skin. "We're not going anywhere," she said quietly, like a promise she needed him to hear even if he didn't answer.
Jinx's voice came softer than Lux had ever heard it. "Yeah, Spider. You're stuck with us."
A sound escaped him—not quite a laugh, not quite a sob—just a fragile exhale between the two. His grip tightened, not crushing, but desperate in its own way.
The room stayed warm with their shared heat, but the heaviness didn't lift. It lingered under the tenderness, that deep, unmovable weight of something unresolved. Something they couldn't fix tonight.
And maybe they knew it. Maybe that was why neither of them tried to say anything else—why they didn't fill the air with reassurances they couldn't guarantee.
Instead, they held on.
Minutes passed before his breathing began to slow, his muscles loosening by degrees. Lux and Jinx shifted only to pull the blanket tighter around them, tucking it so no cold air could get in.
The lights were still on, but no one moved to switch them off.
Lux's voice came last, soft enough that it felt meant for him alone. "We've got you."
Jinx echoed her after a beat, quiet and certain. "Always."
Peter didn't answer. But he didn't let go either.
And eventually, with the two of them still on either side of him, his breathing evened out into something close to sleep.
To Be Continued...