For 30+ Advance/Early chapters :p
atreon.com/ScoldeyJod
The morning after the fight was worse than the fight itself. The explosive anger and raw, tearful fear had receded, leaving behind the cold, heavy ash of unspoken things. Peter came downstairs to find May already in the kitchen, moving with a stiff, brittle energy. She was making pancakes, but the familiar, comforting ritual was a hollow performance. The air, usually thick with the scent of buttermilk and warmth, was thin and sharp with a tension that was almost unbearable.
"Morning," he said, his voice a quiet, cautious thing.
"Good morning, Peter," she replied, her own voice meticulously polite, which was a thousand times more painful than her yelling had been. She didn't look at him, her focus entirely on the batter in the bowl. "I trust you slept well."
"I... I slept okay," he lied. He hadn't slept at all. He had spent the night staring at his ceiling, replaying her heartbroken words, the look of betrayal in her eyes a fresh, open wound.
She placed a plate of perfectly golden pancakes in front of him, but the gesture felt like an accusation. They ate in a silence that was louder than any argument. The scrape of his fork against the plate, the tick of the clock on the wall—every sound was magnified, a testament to the vast, empty space that had opened up between them.
"I have to go," he said finally, pushing his half-eaten breakfast away. "I have a midterm."
"Of course," she said, still not looking at him as she began to clear the table. "You have many responsibilities at the university." The emphasis on the last word was a subtle, sharp twist of the knife. You have a new life, a new person, and you are leaving me behind.
"May, I..." he started, the need to fix this, to say something, anything, a desperate ache in his chest.
She finally looked at him, and her eyes were empty of anger, filled only with a deep, weary sadness. "Just... please, Peter," she whispered, her voice fragile. "Charge your phone. And please... just let me know that you're safe."
"I will," he promised, the words feeling like another lie, another hollow guarantee from a person she no longer trusted. "I promise."
He fled the house, the quiet, suffocating weight of her disappointment a physical presence on his back. The subway ride to campus was a special kind of hell. Every screech of the wheels against the track, every loud, cheerful conversation from the other passengers, grated on his raw nerves. He felt a profound, crushing loneliness, the unique isolation of a person who is living a lie. The wall he had built to protect May now felt like his own prison.
He wasn't just going to class. He was seeking sanctuary. He was seeking Diana.
He found her exactly where he knew she would be, sitting on the library steps, a heavy book open in her lap, the morning sun catching the deep, almost blue-black sheen of her hair. She looked up as he approached, and her warm, welcoming smile faltered the instant she saw his face. Her expression shifted, her brow furrowing with an immediate, sharp concern. She didn't have to be a mind reader to see the storm he was in.
"Peter," she said, her voice a low, steadying presence as he sat down beside her, the simple act of being near her already beginning to soothe the frantic, buzzing anxiety in his mind. "What has happened?"
He couldn't meet her eyes. He just stared at the worn concrete of the steps. "I got home last night," he began, his voice a hoarse whisper. "My aunt. She was back. She'd been home for hours, trying to call me. She thought... she thought I was dead."
He took a shaky breath and finally forced himself to tell her the edited, civilian version of the truth. He told her about the fight, about her fear, about the lies he'd had to tell, about the chasm that had opened up between him and the only family he had left. He didn't tell her about the bruises or the hickeys, but he didn't need to. He told her about the look in May's eyes, the profound, heartbreaking disappointment.
Diana listened, her focus absolute. She didn't interrupt, didn't offer empty platitudes. She just listened, her presence a solid, unshakeable anchor in his chaotic story. When he was finished, a heavy silence settled between them.
"She is afraid," Diana said finally, her voice full of a quiet, profound wisdom. "She is your guardian. Her world, for many years, has been centered on your well-being. Your new independence, your new… partnership… it is a threat to that world. She does not fear losing you to danger as much as she fears losing you to a life she is no longer a part of."
He looked at her, startled by the accuracy, the sheer, empathetic clarity of her assessment. She wasn't just his lover; she was the most perceptive person he had ever met.
"What do I do?" he asked, the question a raw, vulnerable plea. "I can't tell her the truth. The real truth. It would destroy her. But every lie I tell… it feels like it's destroying us."
"You do what a warrior does," she replied, her hand finding his, her fingers lacing with his in a firm, grounding grip. "You carry your shield. You protect your people, even when it is a heavy burden. The lies you tell are not for your own benefit, but for hers. There is honor in that, Peter. Even when there is pain."
He leaned his head against her shoulder, a profound sense of relief washing over him. She didn't judge him. She didn't tell him he was wrong. She understood the terrible, paradoxical nature of his duty. She was his shield-mate, in more ways than she would ever know.
They sat like that for a long time, their hands clasped, a silent, powerful current flowing between them. He was a fractured, messy thing, and she was the quiet, steady force that was holding him together.
"Come," she said eventually, her voice gently pulling him back from the edge. "We have a midterm to conquer. And after that, we have a monster to hunt."
She stood, pulling him to his feet. The shift in focus was deliberate, a strategic maneuver to pull his mind from the unwinnable battle at home to the winnable one that lay ahead.
"The A.I.M. components," she said, her eyes now sharp and focused, the lover replaced by the strategist. "I was analyzing their specifications last night. The power core and the cryo-condenser are both proprietary military-grade tech. There are only a handful of scientists in the world with the expertise to integrate them. I have cross-referenced that list with a database of known A.I.M. associates."
She pulled out her phone, showing him a screen with a single, grainy photo of a man with a sharp, cruel face and cold, intelligent eyes. "Dr. Aris Thorne," she said, her voice a low, grim whisper. "A disgraced M.I.T. cyberneticist. He was fired for... unethical experiments in bio-mechanical integration. He is A.I.M.'s foremost expert in creating and sustaining unstable biological entities."
Peter stared at the face on the screen. The name, the specialty—it all clicked into place. The final piece of the puzzle. This was the man who had built M.O.D.O.K.'s cage.
"If we can find him," Peter breathed, the guilt and sadness from his fight with May being consumed by a new, cold fire, "we can find out what they're planning next."
The emotional storm was far from over. The fracture in his home life was still a raw, aching wound. But Diana had given him something to hold onto. A mission. A purpose. She had taken his pain and helped him reforge it into a weapon. They looked at each other, and in that shared, determined gaze, the promise was made. The city had its monsters. But it also had its heroes. And they were just getting started.
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