~Broken Family~

Just A Text

"Gwen! Help me!"

Peter was trapped underneath the Vulture's claws, blood spurting from a gash on his forehead. He was in his homemade suit, and his mask was long since ripped away. The Vulture chuckled as he struggled, stirring up sand around them.

She started running towards him, but her legs were like jell-o. It was almost as if she were running backwards.

"Gwen!"

She turned over her shoulder, heart jumping into her throat when she saw her parents stranded on a piece of teetering scaffolding, about to fall. With one last regretful glance at Peter, she spun on her heel and webbed herself up to the scaffolding to catch her parents.

The scaffolding broke and they fell, screaming for her. At the same time, Patricia, the bully from school, somehow floated in front of her and grabbed her wrist so she couldn't use her webs.

There was a sickening thud as her parents fell to the ground, and Gwen could still hear the quieting echoes of Peter screaming for her as the Vulture killed him.

"You couldn't save them," Patricia hissed in her ear. "Any of them."

***

Gwen awoke screaming. She thrashed around in her blankets, gasping, crying.

No one else in the room paid her much mind. Nightmares were a common thing these days, and sleep was so hard to get that you didn't really want to give it up just because someone else had had one.

She took a few gulps of air and managed to calm herself, bringing her knees to her chest and running a hand through her tangled hair. Waking up to a reality that was nearly the same as the nightmare wasn't helping to calm her.

The groaning of rubber sounded as someone rolled off an air mattress. Gwen glanced over, seeing the silhouette of a young child in the moonlight. He tiptoed over to her bed, gave her shoulder two gentle taps, and tilted his head. In the dim light, Gwen saw his freckled face scrunch up in concern.

She placed her hand overtop of his, giving him a thankful look and a nod. "I'm okay," she mouthed, adding a thumbs up for extra clarification. The little boy's eyes flickered to her hand before going back to her eyes, his face still knit with concern.

He doesn't believe me, Gwen thought with an eye roll. She relaxed, took another, deep breath, and tried her best to look sleepy. She pointed to the boy's air mattress and nodded.

Relentless, the boy left the room and soon returned with a glass of water, tapping three fingers to his lips. He set it next to her bed and gave her shoulder two more taps before climbing back under his covers. Gwen heard the other kids shifting around in their sleep.

The boy had been entrusted to Mr. and Mrs. Roberts just last week after being at a homeless shelter since the Snap. He was only twelve, and since he was Deaf, and no one in the house knew sign language, communicating with him was sometimes a challenge. They knew that he had already been through a lot of foster homes before the Snap, though, so he acted like he was used to moving around a lot.

He had told Gwen he missed his family, though.

I used to wear hearing aids, he'd written to Gwen on a slip of paper one evening. Just two days ago, in fact. My new family knew sign, so I didn't need them. I don't like the hearing aids---they make my head hurt. I was glad to stop using them and embrace my Deafness. But now it's hard, no one knows what I say. I just want my family back.

We could find you new hearing aids, Gwen had suggested, scribbling madly away at the paper as the ideas came to her. Or you could teach us all sign language. I can learn, I'm a fast learner. There has to be some way you can communicate with us, it's not fair that just because we don't know ASL doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to tell us you want a sandwich.

Billy had pursed his lips, making a little grunting sound in the back of his throat as he took the paper back. My friend/brother taught me to not be afraid to be myself. Every time he came to see me, he would tell me not to care what other people think. He told me to be proud of who I am, especially my Deafness. Once I sat at a table just like this and we wrote notes back and forth.

Gwen had underlined friend/brother in confusion, lowering her eyebrows in confusion like the boy did when asking a question.

The boy sighed as he picked up the pencil again. A boy was put in a foster home I had been in for a few months. They were bad people, and got worse when he showed up. They beat him up a few times but he was always brave. He protected us and made sure we didn't get hurt. When the police took the parents away, we were separated. But he always visited me. Now he is gone too.

I'm sorry, Billy. That must have been really hard.

***

Gwen stared at her phone for half the morning. It was switched off. She felt like she was waiting for Peter to call her and invite her to come hang out at the library or something.

Blowing a frustrated huff through her lips, Gwen tucked her phone into her pocket and left the house, throwing down her skateboard and riding down the sidewalk. She'd found it in a garbage pile outside of Peter's old apartment in Queens he had lived in with his aunt and uncle, and a part of her hoped it had been his. Even though logic reminded her that Peter had moved out of Queens two years ago, and that the only skateboard he'd owned had snapped in half because he'd flipped too high and stuck a hard landing. Gwen hadn't been able to stop laughing for fifteen minutes.

She didn't know where she was going---hopefully somewhere with answers.

Before long, she found herself at the Memorial of the Vanished. The stones looked exactly as they had been yesterday and would be forever, except for the fact that there were now a lot more flowers at the bases.

She tucked the not-Peter's skateboard under her arm and headed over to one of the S memorials, weaving in between the seemingly unending rows of stone slabs. Names reached out to her, tugging at her memory, begging her to remember random kids from kindergarten or a ballet instructor or two.

Ballet.

She longed to wear her shoes for something else besides Spider-Gwening. She missed the smell of the studio, the excitement she felt when warming up, the way she felt when she was spinning across the room.

How could she return to the one thing she felt like she was able to do freely, without having to hide who she was? The one thing that kept her afloat now was merely the thought of doing it again. The Roberts would probably let her do it again...but with the same studio? The one she'd been going to wasn't exactly cheap, since her class was the most advanced. And she didn't even know if they were still doing it---lots of businesses had closed after the Snap. Maybe the dance studio had been one.

As she approached the memorial that listed her parents, Peter, and Morgan, she glanced at the base. A few more flowers had been placed, covering the photos that Pepper had so carefully arranged. Now she felt guilty---she should've brought flowers or something.

She brushed her fingers across the flowers, gently arranging them so that the photos were visible. Peter, Morgan, and Harley all smiled up at her. In the Disney World one, they squinted as they smiled in the direction of the sun.

You don't have to do this alone, Pepper's words rang in her ear as she glanced at Harley.

Poor Harley had just lost his siblings and been hospitalized, and he was texting Gwen to make sure she was okay. And what had happened to his leg? It couldn't have been just a break, that would've had a cast. He had had wires sticking out of it, and that had to mean something had happened to the structure of his entire leg.

Peter hadn't said anything about Harley getting hurt. Maybe it had happened after the Snap.

Maybe...maybe she could talk to him and make sure he was doing okay. Just a quick text back. It wasn't cool to leave people hanging these days on read, you wonder if they Snapped late or something. (Hey, sounded irrational, but it was an honest fear.)

Just one quick text, she decided as she left the memorial.