Ecesis | Peter Parker

05- Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

"One day when I was fourteen, I was sitting on the front porch of my parents house with my siblings. Everything was so calm that day. The breeze was pleasant, the birds were singing, and things just felt like they perfectly fell into place. Of course, that all changed within an instant. A brown car pulled into the driveway and parked right behind my father's station wagon. I didn't know the car, and I didn't know the two men that stepped out of it. They approached me, one was smiling while the other one wasn't, and the polite one started telling me things like how that I was exactly like him and they wanted me to join their cause. Now, since I was only fourteen, I called for my father and he rushed out the house and told the strange men to leave. However, the polite man didn't seem like he was threatened by my burly father. He placed his middle and index finger to his temple and started to tell my father things that had happened to him as a child: how he received the linear scar on the left side of his torso from falling out of a two story window at age seven, when he got his first kiss, and even a really early memory of when he caught my grandfather cheating on my grandmother with the preacher's wife.
My father was terrified. He sent my siblings inside and told me to stand close to him. I'll never forget him grabbing onto my shoulders and keeping me under his protection from the unknown witchcraft the stranger practiced. 'You stay the hell away from my daughter,' my father spatted at them.
The other man, the unenthusiastic one, told me that I was indeed what they were, but I just didn't know it yet.
They begged me to join them once more, them telling me that they could help me when the time came, but my father was persistent and demanded them to leave before he got his rifle involved.
The men finally obeyed and started to leave. The polite man told me his name then said for me to 'Have a nice day and never hesitate to contact me once it manifests, Maura.'
My father and I watched the car back out of the driveway and then we both never forgot about the bizarre experience.
A year later, on my fifteenth birthday, what the men told me about finally came true. I was horrified, and so were my parents. None of us knew what to do. None of us knew what was happening to me.
So, during all this, I remembered the name of the man that told me to contact him when the thing he spoke about finally showed itself. My parents found a way to speak to him and he came all the way to Allentown, Pennsylvania just to see me again. Only this time, he was in a wheelchair and the other man was gone.
He somehow convinced my parents to let me go back with him to his school for kids that were just like me in New York. They were hesitant at first, but I suppose they soon realized that I desperately needed the man's help.
And that's what he did. He taught me and other children how to gain control of our strange abilities with the help of another man that mostly dealt with technology at the school.
At seventeen, since I had already been there for two years, I was tasked in showing a new student the school. He was a Russian that snuck into to America in order for to receive the treatment that he needed so he could learn how to control what he possessed.
Little did I know that he'd end up becoming my entire world."

"Wait. I thought you said that you met him at HYDRA's facility?"

"Patience, dear Peter Parker. Anyway, Alek and I were instantly attracted to one another the moment we locked eyes. We did everything together, and he and I were inseparable from the start.
Months into dating, I became pregnant. I was carrying a child at seventeen and no one knew what to do. Even though I did become pregnant, Alek and I were both allowed to stay at the school and were even encouraged to raise the baby there. On my eighteenth birthday, I went into labor. There's nothing like being welcomed to adulthood by pushing a baby out of you."
She sighed. "The moment I held that child in my arms, I felt complete.
The first couple of months were simple; barely any crying, the baby always slept and the headmaster of the school loved having our child around. My child was like the baby he never got to have.
When my child was six months old, I found out I was pregnant again. Now, Alger, if you ever have a child with Peter Parker, don't let him get you pregnant again until the child you already have is at least a year old."

I could feel both mine and Peter's faces get hot.

The woman continued. "I was eighteen years old, already a mother to an infant, pregnant with what I thought was my second child.
One night, when I was around eight months pregnant, my firstborn threw their first big fit. My baby screamed and wailed and nothing would satisfy. So, as a tired mother, I held my child in my arms while I tried to go back to sleep myself. Even Alek came to my dorm and wrapped his arms around us both in order to try to get some sleep.
My child's wails turned to sniffles, but, I started to feel strange.
My stomach was hot to the touch and I couldn't stop sweating. I honestly thought I was going into labor but I also knew that wasn't possible because none of that happened the last time I gave birth.
My throat closed up and I couldn't breathe. My vision was beginning to form bright white spots and every time I tried to blink them away, it kept getting worse.
But before I knew it, it felt as if I was pushed out of a plane while Alek was holding me and I had our baby clutched in my arms. It was the strangest feeling I've ever endured.
Then, everything went black. I woke up covered in snow to the sound of wailing once more.
I sat up and saw nothing but white trees and Alek cradling my crying baby. When I turned to him for some answers, all he did was stand to his feet and helped me up while still comforting our baby.
We started to walk miles through the unbearable frigid temperature and hoped that we'd soon find shelter before we would get frostbite on our bare feet. We treaded on until we found a large metal building that was miles away from civilization.
We made it to the fence and were stopped by two men wearing uniforms and holding rifles. They yelled at us in Russian but Alek communicated back to them calmly. Once Alek was done saying whatever it was he told them in his native tongue, the two guards looked to one another then let us into the building.
Once in, we were greeted by a nice man in a fancy business suit that seemed too out of place to be in the building that was as disgusting as the one we were in.
The man spoke in english but he had a very thick Russian accent like Alek. He told us that we could either become volunteers or be thrown back out into the cold.
So, we agreed to become volunteers. The man snatched my child out of my arms and that's when I knew I made a grave mistake. I tried to take my baby back, even Alek tried, but more guards came and dragged us away.
As I screamed and kicked, I grabbed onto Alek's hand as we both tried to get to the man that stole our baby.
We broke free from the men that pulled us back but it was no use. For the moment we took a step toward our child, we were in a new location.
You see, Aloysis teleported us here. To a place neither me or her father knew. I gave birth to the twins here, I raised them in this deserted castle that I claimed as my own."

"Who was your first child?" Aloysis interrupted.

Their mother just stared at her solemnly. An expression I had a feeling she rarely wore around her children.

"Mother, who was your firstborn?" Ansel screamed.

Their mother sighed once more. "I thought they killed my baby. I figured they used my child as their lab rat and throw away the evidence once they were done.
However, I had no clue that, after all these years, she'd be HYDRA's top assassin." The woman rose to her feet and quickly made her way down the steps to me. I could see the tears that were welding up in her piercing blue eyes. She stared down at me with a sincere smile. The two copies that were holding onto me instantly disappeared and the woman helped me rise to my feet. She then engulfed me in a tight hug, squeezing me around my waist with my arms pinned down to my sides. She bent her knees and rested her chin on my left shoulder. She turned her head and whispered something in my ear. "Welcome home, my little Algrafena."