Inheritance of ash

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Dislike.

Dislike hurt less. Dislike felt survivable.

She disliked herself for the breakup — or the "pause," or whatever she and Peter were doing. She couldn't blame him for leaving. She was the one who told him he deserved better. She told him she didn't want to drag him down.

He had simply listened.

Why did that make her regret it even more?

Love was a bitch. A complicated, inconvenient, gut-wrenching bitch. It was like carrying a dagger between her ribs — one that twisted every time she remembered him.

But maybe she deserved the wound.

Peter had been wrong about one thing, though.

She didn't like hurting herself.

The lighter against her thigh, the nail pressed into her palm, the trembling hands and shallow breaths — none of it had ever felt good in the long run. The blood never gave comfort. It terrified her as much as it terrified everyone else.

She just hadn't known how to stop.

Now she did.

She didn't want to go back.

Not ever.

She wished she'd realized that before Peter asked what was wrong with her and she screamed everything.

No whole person was ever truly broken. Bones broke, hearts broke, minds cracked — but as long as lungs filled and a pulse beat, a person could never be entirely gone.

They were just hurting.

And hurting... was okay. As long as you weren't causing it on purpose.

That revelation helped her more than she would ever admit out loud. But it didn't solve the ache of not seeing Peter for almost four months.

She tried missing him in a healthy way.

She cried, never alone.
She smiled, even when he stayed on the edges of every thought.
She tried — truly tried — to build something steady.

He was right when he said she hadn't been trying before. Now she tried every day. And the simple act of trying made her feel halfway to succeeding.

Trying didn't just mean getting out of bed.

It meant living. Laughing. Feeling. Doing things that made her heart beat instead of ache.

She'd cut her hair short.
Rediscovered drawing.
Music.
Long hours at the piano.
Card games with her ridiculous family.
Time with the Young Avengers.
And... reading.

Reading surprised her most of all.

Growing up — or whatever that false childhood Loki had created counted as — she never liked books. Claire used to beg her to finish her school novels, but she never did.

Poetry, though? Poetry felt like magic she actually understood. Each line felt like someone reaching into the world and pulling out a truth she didn't know how to express.

She had three favorites.

"Be the woman you would look up to."

Plural, really. The woman she dreamed of being had many faces. Natasha — untouchable grace, unwavering strength. Pepper — gentle, loving, steady as bedrock. Vicky cried when Pepper asked her to be maid of honor for the wedding.

Tony and Pepper's wedding was approaching. May 12th. One month away.

"It's hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember."