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𝙉𝙊𝙏 𝘼𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙍 𝙏𝙀𝙀𝙉 𝙈𝙊𝙑𝙄𝙀.
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑: Washington, D.C.
𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐋 𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐑? ─ 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆, 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃
𝟏𝟒 𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟔
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
☆
New on the list of fears Lizzie had added over the years: Spider-Man's means-of-transportation. She'd decided right then and there that she would be getting serious about a driver's license and already pitied her father for that torture. To distract herself from the inevitable drop when Peter Parker's arm gave out around her waist, she'd started listing off all the things she really needed to get done before her 16th birthday. Number one on that list was to ask C.T. to Homecoming, then she would call Happy and tell him she needed help burying Peter, then she would apologize to her parents for ditching a school trip and hug them until they turned blue, maybe she would—No. Nope. No more future. She was going to throw up.
"Put me down. Put me down, put me down, put me down!...never again. There's no way you do that for fun. Oh, I'm going to throw up—"
"Sorry," was the response from the irritating Spider-Thing, cringing as she hunched over behind the station's sign. Although she hadn't thrown up yet, he figured she was either falling down that road or complete unconsciousness. Not only did she grow pale white when their feet hit the ground, but SUIT LADY was informing him of her condition. "You're the first person I've tried that with."
That comment didn't help make the situation or her any better, and Lizzie's head raised long enough to shoot him a deranged glare. The two dark braids had been abused much like the rest of her, and the frizz and baby hairs made it look like she'd slept for days on them. Unfortunately (because that was how most of Peter's existential crises started) the only barrier he had against the death-stare was his mask. Even that felt like it was melting against his skin. He hasn't specified the little fact when he was swinging her along like she was a rag-doll. No less throwing them on top of a moving vehicle like she was a bug.
"Never. Again."
"SUIT LADY says you need water."
"Tell SUIT LADY you hacked into her system," she spit back, wincing when she had to swallow again to fight back the urge to projectile-vomit all over Peter. Not that she'd apologize. But she would be disgusted. "You think I can't tell? You and Ned giggling over your laptop all dinner, and now you have enhanced access to your system—what, do you think I'm oblivious? Were you going to lie to me?"
The eyes on his suit widened, and he panicked when he heard the AI start to ask what Lizzie meant. "No, no, no—SUIT LADY, don't listen to her. She's just upset because she still hasn't passed the Training Wheels Protocol on her suit. Yes, yes—that one. No, I don't need the stats. SUIT LADY, where are they?...why is their secret lair a gas station? That's so lame."
"God help me," Lizzie moaned pitifully to anyone as she raised up, unsteady on her feet and swaying until her land legs set in. Then she felt ill again and ducked back down, her hands using the cement as a brace to rock back and forth—all while Peter talked to his new best-friend, SUIT LADY. Like she wasn't going through a new phase of hell right now. She tried to stay focused when Peter suddenly ducked and moved behind the sign next to her. "What's she saying?"
Peter paused when he heard the AI, watching as she connected a bluetooth access to the contact name 'PADME'S MOM.' "I am now allowing compete access to the approved device located twelve inches away, labeled 'Lizzie's Airpods.' User will now receive access to the Audio-Only services of this suit."
"She said she enabled access to your Airpods," Peter translated with less jargon. Lizzie's hands were blindly rooting through her backpack from behind, finding the white case and putting one of the pieces into her ears. She paused, and then looked at him expectantly when she heard silence. "...SUIT LADY, are you there?"
"Please state the name you would like to be called," rang in Lizzie's ears, an automated woman. SUIT LADY, apparently.
She considered her options. "MJ."
"Contact saved. Enabling all access. Nice to meet you, MJ. How can I help you today?"
Peter interjected in the conversation, peering his head over the sign again to see where the vehicle remained parked. No movement. His question was for both Lizzie and SUIT LADY, but mainly himself. "What are they doing?"
"Do you want to hear what they're saying?"
"I can hear what they're saying?" Peter's voice raised above an excited whisper, and the reaction confirmed what Lizzie already knew: Training Wheels Protocol was there for a reason. "Uh, yeah."
"Activating Enhanced Reconnaissance Mode."
Voices were muffled, but still audible in their ears. Lizzie suspected Peter had a better visual, and so she relied on him to be her eyes as she continued to swallow down her dinner. He nudged her, holding up four fingers, and she gave him a brief thumbs up before squeezing her eyes closed. Internally, her body was trying to decide whether or not she was having a panic attack or a nervous breakdown—either of which seemed likely for the present circumstances—all while reminding herself: she was in the field. With only Spider-Man to depend on. She didn't have time for this.
"I got the gauntlet from the Lagos cleanup," the first man said, and with its location, Lizzie couldn't erase the memories of the Sokovia Accords. Wanda. Steve. Rumlow. "The rest is all my design."
"Can't believe they're still cleaning up that Triskelion mess—"
So was she.
The specific name was one she hadn't heard in a long time. Fingers digging into the cement, she shook her head and tried to push down what she couldn't control. There was no time for this. One of the men who hadn't spoke yet replied. "I love it. They keep making messes, we keep getting rich."
"Target inbound—"
Peter suddenly caught on to what was happening between the men, turning to a distressed-and-feverish Lizzie. "Whoa, they're in the middle of a heist! We could catch them all red-handed, Lizzie! Okay....this is awesome. Okay, I'm gonna get a little closer so I can see what's happening."
"Would you like me to engage Enhanced Combat Mode?"
"Uh..." he didn't miss the (shocking!) warning glare from Lizzie. "Enhanced Combat Mode? Yeah."
"Activating Instant Kill."
Peter Parker would be the death of her. When the eyes of his suit turned a solid red, and the name matched the dangerous undertone, both teenagers started to freak out. Peter thrashed his arms around in panic, nearly taking out Lizzie in the process had his suit not deflected it with 'FRIENDLY' popping up. Nice to know his suit wouldn't let him kill her even if he tried.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to kill anybody!"
"DeactivateInstantKill!" Lizzie spluttered out in one breath.
"PADME'S MOM Override. Deactivating Instant Kill."
The evil red eyes of death reverted to their usual white, and the two of them waited until their breathing returned to normal after evading another problem per-Peter code-breaking his suit. Finally, Lizzie's brows shot up at the name, looking at Peter with an unreadable expression. "Really?"
"I didn't choose it. It's your month soon, by the way," he grumbled, thinking about their agreement with Padme. He looked at her for the first time since landing, doing a quick check-up. Diagnosis: not good. Cringing, he took a hesitant step closer. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm great," she said as she spit. "Thanks for asking."
In their ears, they heard: "I believe she's being sarcastic."
"Thanks, SUIT LADY," Peter glowered at the unwarranted comment. He took a look at the van, then at her, then at the van again as he decided his next (stupid) plan. Clearly, she could not tackle the situation at hand, and he would have to intervene before he picked her up again. Lizzie must not have thought that far ahead. "Okay. You stay here."
"You can't just go up to them! I don't even have a weapon!"
She considered the rocks around her.
"We won't need 'em!" and he tried to swing up to the top of the gas station, but the web faulted into rapid fire webs and he fell. A loud 'PLOP' echoed in the air for just a second. Lizzie gaped at his face-plant into the asphalt, trying to decide whether to laugh until she finally threw up or be concerned that he's just given away their position. "SUIT LADY, what's wrong with my web shooters?"
"Peter, you idiot!" she whispered to him through her Airpods, watching as he ran to duck behind the sign near the gas pumps. "What are you doing? Stop screwing around with your suit!"
"Rapid-fire is the default for Enhanced Combat Mode."
"Why would I need rapid fire?" Peter asked, confused.
"Would you like to see more options?"
"No! He would not!" Lizzie jumped in before he gave them away. "Default back to the regular webs, no modes."
"Oh! That's him, MJ. We gotta go! Hang on!"
"No. Peter, no, no, no—!"
Lizzie prayed to her Aunt Peggy in the heavens when Peter (rather aggressively) grabbed at her to wrap an arm around her waist. She considered in that moment how flustered he would have been doing this with Liz Allen. She'd barely had the chance to cling onto him when he deployed—deployed? For a web? Lizzie hated the idea of thinking that Peter shot his webs everywhere—his (THANKFULLY) correct web-shooter against a a light post, following the dark shadow of the well-named Bird Man in the lining of the trees. The air was stinging her face, forcing her to duck her head lower into his shoulder, feeling strands of her hair fall out of the french braids. She decided it was significantly better when she could see nothing.
"We need to get on that truck! Hang on!" he shouted at her, and then he swung from the final tree. Lizzie forced herself to open her eyes, regretting that decision when her and Peter went swinging directly into the back of the last shipment truck. Lizzie gripped onto whatever she could hold, which ended up being a latch at the bottom with her foot and the side of the truck with her right hand. Peter quite literally stuck to the back of the truck unlike her, and while disgusted, she appreciated his right arm acting as a barrier against her spine to keep her from falling off the back and becoming instant road kill.
Considerate of him.
"I'm going up! See if you can get inside of this thing!"
Nevermind.
"What do you mean 'get inside of it?' I don't have laser vision!" she shouted at him, the wind blowing out her words and he made a face—indicating he didn't hear anything, or he definitely did and didn't care—then he crawled up the back of the truck, leaving her there with her foot on the latch. "Oh, we're going to die."
Lizzie looked down, feeling very much like she could not move any muscle in her body without instantly slipping off. Looking up at the sky for a second, she closed her eyes and kicked the latch down. Nothing at first, and she realized there was a lock. Fuck. Again, she kicked with as much force as she could, pretending the blisters weren't burning and that a shooting pain didn't just shock the back of her calf. The lock went flying off onto the road at her second attempt, and she let out a shaky exhale of relief. Slowly, grateful for all of the wall-sits and flexibility tests, she moved her grip down the side as her body strategically followed.
"Woah...it's some kind of matter-phase shifter." Peter could be heard in her Airpod, which she couldn't believe had survived to where she was now. On the back of a truck, interrupting an illegal weapons heist during a school trip in D.C., with Spider-Man. Everyone back home was going to kill her. Ma was going to do it slowly. "Hey, Big Bird! This doesn't belong to you!"
Peter was going to be murdered before they even got home.
Lizzie could only base off what she could see, which was nothing, and there was no way for her to get up to the top. So she did what he told her to and crawled her fingertips down the bottom of the door, pulling at it and praying she didn't tip herself off in the process. Overhead, she saw the Evil Bird man fly just above her. Whether he spotted her or not barely mattered, and she pulled the door enough that she could maneuver her body through. Hitting a solid iron rack in the process, Lizzie winced and closed her eyes as she held the back of her head.
"Peter," she groaned. "I'm inside—"
"I got him out! I think he's leavin—"
Peter being cut off meant nothing good, and she shot her eyes open. That was when she noticed the cut-out ceiling of the shipping container, and she felt instantly pissed at all of her hard work getting the door open when there was a literal hole in the ceiling. Connecting that Peter was talking about this when he mentioned the 'matter-phase shifter,' she got distracted by it in the midst of shelves of weapons.
Then, a body came flying through the empty space, and just as quickly as they went down, the identified Spider-Man jumped back up. Just to hit the ceiling of the shipping container. Lizzie's eyes widened when Peter stopped moving at the impact for his head, his body dropping to the floor and rattling the shelves around them. She dropped, making she he hadn't broken his neck, and when she found a pulse, Lizzie dropped her head in relief.
Oh, they were so very fucked.
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐋 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 ─ 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆, 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃
𝟏5 𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟔
"Oh, my head..."
"You appear to have a mild concussion."
"Hey, so where am I right now? Wait. Wait—where's Lizzie? Where's—" Peter scrambled around the shipping container as he spoke, the panic setting in that his acquaintance was nowhere to be found. He stood up in alarm, but instantly regretted it when dark spots starting to block his vision and he groaned out in pain. Ripping his mask off, he dug his hands into his eyes. "SUIT LADY, where is she?"
"Parker? Hey, hey, hey. You have a concussion," was given as an alternative answer that didn't sound artificially intelligent, physical hands on his upper arms to stabilize him. Lizzie, he recognized the voice, and the relief weighed his body down as hands moved to hold his waist. "Parker. C'mon, Parker, Peter—shit."
Lizzie Carter carefully dropped to the ground when Peter drifted out of consciousness, his body crushing her legs and causing her to push her head back so that she didn't get a mouthful of sweaty curls. She debated the entirety of the time she sat there, her leg cramping up and bad shoulder aching, if she should just get up and let him lay on the cold floor. Maybe it would cool his fever—
He woke up before she could decide. "Lizzie? Where are we?"
"SUIT LADY called it the 'Damage Control Deep Storage Vault.'"
After knowing he was conscious, she refused to be in the small space any longer. Not with all of the weapons. The first time he was unconscious, he missed the drive. Another five minutes, two left turns and one gate where they entered some kind of facility. They were backed up and loaded off, which Peter stayed unconscious through. After an hour, she couldn't take the silence any more and decided it was safe to leave. With the lock already broken and unchecked, she opened the door and found out where they were. And doubled-down on how utterly fucked they were somewhere in between.
Lizzie got up from behind him with expert precision and pushed off with her arms in one fell swoop. He'd only halfway registered the loss of her stabling him. She winced and twisted her upper body to pop her spine, all while Peter found himself confused and delusional over what had just happened. Instead of giving him any further answers, a bright light blinded him momentarily and Lizzie disappeared through it.
Were they dead?
If only they had been that lucky.
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
Lizzie had not talked to Peter since she left him in the shipping container. When he asked SUIT LADY how long it had been for the first time, she said ten minutes. By the thirty-second time he'd asked her, exactly thirty-five minutes had passed. Long before that, she had abandoned her AirPod and left him to digress to SUIT LADY by himself. In his inner-monologue, he'd confessed a number of things: one, that he was uncomfortable calling her suit-lady and believed KAREN was more appropriate (because he couldn't call her Liz, which he had to confirm to KAREN was not LizZIE but a different Liz); but most importantly, two, that he needed to get the hell out of here.
By the time an hour and a half hit, he decided in anger that he would stop talking as well. Not to Lizzie, who had been sitting in a corner by the door sulking the entire time, or to KAREN even if she was his only friend right now. On the opposing side, Lizzie felt the time pass slowly. The little game that Parker and her had been playing for the last however-many-minutes (she turned her phone off when she realized there was no reception) started nagging on them both. Well, actually—just Peter. Lizzie's only problem was containing her urge to laugh under her breath at just how difficult silence was for the boy. Normally, she would be trying to rip her own skin off, but if sitting in silence could rile up the boy so much, she'd continue their little game all night.
Finally, he'd reached his last breaking point. Peter shuffled back to where she was stationed, his mask gripped in his fist and a crazed-expression taking over his features. "I can't do this! We need to get out. How are you not freaking out right now? If we don't get back to the hotel, Mister Harrington is going to notice we're gone on a school trip, and what if we don't get back in time to make the Decathlon? And you have those double-decker games—"
Lizzie, having won, corrected him. "Double-header."
"Are you kidding me?" he whirled around to glare at her, clear frenzy in his eyes as the panic got to him. The smile fell off her face slowly. "You sit there in silence watching me try and get us out of here for an hour, you CONTINUE to sit there in silence while I figure out a plan, and the first thing you say this whole night is to CORRECT me—oh, my God. I need to get away from you—"
"What do you expect me to do, Peter?" she requested, raising her arms out to gesture around them, and then pointing toward the control panel at the top of the door. "We are in a damage control vault. An F5 tornado could wreck through the city and we wouldn't know it. Even if there was the possibility of hacking into the lock panel, there's likely thousands of sequences that would take all night to input, and by that point, it will be morning and the vault will open for its incoming shipments—"
His own arms raised in distress. "So what? You're just giving up?"
That particular accusation must have hit a nerve. Lizzie's jaw clenched, and she had to physically divert her attention away from Peter for a moment so that she didn't completely lose it on the teenage boy. Had he not been mid-mental breakdown, Peter might have been mildly sorry for that comment, but he had spent the last hour talking to the AI in his suit while she glared at him. KAREN had been more help than Lizzie, and now that she finally replied to him, he refused to be stuck in the silence any longer.
He would make her talk, one way or another.
"So, is that what we're doing here? We can't have a real conversation unless it's you telling me I messed up?" he interrogated, taking a brave step forward to attract her eyes back to him. Her shoulders tensed up but she remained focused on the storage containers to her right. "You can't even look at me, and I don't even know what I did to make you hate me so much."
Lizzie ducked her head to laugh, and that finally pulled the trigger in Peter's mind from increasingly-annoyed to incredibly PISSED. "So this is what the Avengers taught you? To just be numb?"
Bullseye.
Lizzie's head whipped around so fast, and had he not been rooted in his own anger, he would have fallen back at her fury. "I'd suggest you stop talking about things you don't understand before you say something you can't take back, Parker."
"Like what? 'Cause it doesn't matter what I ask you. You can never just give me a real answer—!"
"—because you don't want the real answer, Peter!"
Peter retreated that time. Words in anger projected through facilities' walls, an undertone that suggested something dark. Something that Lizzie feared telling him. An unknown emotion stirred in his stomach when her eyes found his. Bloodshot and creating tears of anger, seemingly unaware of just how bottomless the emotions carried in her brown eyes. He understood that she was allowing this—him to see her in this state. He had run face-first into her metaphorical walls enough times now to notice the difference. Peter decided to take another brave step into her mind.
"How do you know I don't want it?"
Lizzie's eyebrow raised up and down unconsciously as a shadowed smirk graced her lips, making Peter frown. He didn't understand, but she'd been bitten down a boyish reaction to the statement that she would have followed up with: (that's what she said) in any other situation. Not this one. She pulled back into the current space with Peter, glancing down at her covered knee, picturing the scar hidden underneath the fabric of the leggings. That reminder gave her the answer.
"Because I didn't want the real answer, and I got it anyway," she told him plainly. Already, Lizzie could see him writhing in his suit to demand a better answer. "I can't tell you one thing without explaining the rest, Parker...and it's because I don't hate you that I'm not doing that. Whether you give a shit to listen or not, I'm the only person who's watching your back right now. I'm the one stuck in here with you—"
Peter's lips straightened distastefully. "I didn't forget."
"We are not going to get into the argument of who is being more annoying in this situation—"
"You can't just tell me that you've got my back, and I don't even know if I can trust you. I don't even know you."
"Are you serious right now?" she asked him in disbelief. The long list of times Lizzie had single-handedly saved Peter's ass started to line-up for rapid fire. But she couldn't even bring herself to waste the air trying to convince him. "You know what, that's on you, Parker. You don't get to stand there and blame me, saying you can't trust me, when I am sacrificing everything I have left for you. My girlfriend thinks I'm cheating on her because I'm running around the city saving YOUR life—and unlike you, I don't go around telling the people in my life about other people's secrets."
The reminder that he'd told Ned about her identity clearly was not settled, and his two apologies so far had not been accepted. Peter's chest tightened as she revealed the personal information to him, guilt for what he'd gotten them into, and he decided to play a different game. One where, instead of asking all the wrong questions, he tried to figure out the right ones and actually listen to Lizzie.
"The driver's license that was following you," he began slowly, gauging her reaction to the topic change. Her complexion paled to tell him that it wasn't a good one, and already, Peter could see that he was losing her to her thoughts. "You said that it wasn't the Bird Guy or his friends. Does that mean it's the government? That one guy from the airport—"
"General Ross," she clarified, visibly set off by the man's name. If only Peter knew everything. But he was too much like Tony, wasn't he? Lizzie decided that as she continued. "It wasn't him, or if it was, he isn't following me around during his work hours, which means he's not only an asshole but a creepy one—but I pissed him off. So, who knows?"
Can't imagine that, Peter thought. "How did you piss him off exactly?"
"He didn't like the answers I gave him. He also didn't like that he couldn't throw me in the Raft with the others. Would've been hard to explain that one to our classmates...more specifically, my Ma."
"So...you're, like, on parole."
"I'm not a criminal, Parker."
"Fine. So...report cards?" he corrected himself. "You have to give report cards or something to the General-Stalker because of what happened? Because on the rooftop, you said that you couldn't get in trouble because you have eyes on you."
Lizzie raised her eyebrows. "Oh, so you do listen. You just choose not to do what I say."
"I don't think that was the question—"
"Yes, Peter. Kind of like report cards," she rolled her eyes at his attempt to redirect them. But Lizzie could tell things to Peter that she could not tell her friends, nor anyone her age, because no one knew about Berlin but those in Berlin. And her parents. And Ned. "Therapy every two weeks with Therapist Gracie, and they get sent off to Stark, who sends them off for approval to Ross. Community service was also a requirement, but the Decathlon Team and softball were taken as exceptions since I would need to be two people to do all of that. I can't talk to anyone associated with the Avengers, with certain exceptions. My cell phone? Yeah, can't trust it. Stark gave it to me, which means he has total access, which means I have zero privacy."
Whether Peter wanted to or not, he started to see the world from Lizzie Carter's perspective. A nightmare in itself that revolves around two different lives. He knew that well. But he had not even been in this lifestyle for a year. The exhaustion on the fifteen-year-old caused doubt in her age. She had lived through something that took away her childlike natures—Peter knew because, with every mistake he made, she already expected it.
"When did you...uh..." he frowned.
"Spit it out before I reconsider this little therapy session."
"Sorry. Sorry...um, I guess—when did you get into life?"
What he had not been anticipating was a snort of amusement, and a genuine smile to ghost over the confusing-numbness that was Lizzie Carter. He realized he'd never seen her truly smile like that until now, and it suited her more than when she was glaring at him. To his disappointment, Peter knew he would be on the receiving end of the latter. Especially once Lizzie found out that Ned had brought the not-a-bomb on their Decathlon Trip (which he'd accepted they weren't making).
Lizzie tilted her head in thought, her smile fading but lingering just enough to fuel her words. "Before I was born. How much do you know about Captain America? Before."
"Ah, I mean...I wrote a paper on him in eighth grade. It was about him, and the Howling Commandos, and then Howard Stark and Peggy Carter and...I mean, it was really bad. I think I got a C on it."
"I wrote one and got an A plus."
"Good for you," he retorted with a scowl. "What's the riddle here? I don't get it."
Lizzie figured she would have to spell the connection out for him, albeit there was already the clear giveaway in the shared last name. "My great aunt? The one I'm named after? Her name was Margaret Elizabeth Carter...my Aunt Peggy."
"Oh...oh."
"So when I say before I was born..."
"You mean way before you were born..." Peter nodded, his mouth still hanging open slightly as he connected the rest of the dots. When the same one from earlier clicked in his head, his heart lurched and a familiar pain tiptoed around his grief. "I never told you personally that I'm sorry...for what happened. I texted—but that doesn't matter—but...now that I know who she is...that's why you're so close with Captain Rogers?"
Lizzie's vulnerability dried up, and every nerve was punctured at the mentioning of him. God, Peter knew how to hurt her. "No. It's complicated."
"It's not exactly like we have anywhere else to go right now."
"Hadn't noticed," she commented wryly, unable to hold it in. Somewhat deflecting in the process, as she weighed the odds in her head of just how much it would destroy her to relive her past. On a trip to D.C., with the nightmares and memories blurring into one, Lizzie knew what one answer would lead to. Steve led to Sharon, which led to S.H.I.E.L.D., which led to events she had not talked about ever.
Peter Parker seemed just oblivious to everyone and everything, while simultaneously landing in her nightmare thanks to Tony Stark. That naivety—innocence—could not be healed and would never be found again once it was destroyed. That he had maintained it to fifteen meant he beat Lizzie Carter in one thing.
"When I met Steve, he didn't know me as me. I was asked to help my older sister with a job...she, uh, worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., just like Aunt Peggy. I had just turned thirteen that week...so if you wanted a more precise answer to your earlier question, I was thirteen when I 'got into this life.'"
Peter's eyes followed her hands when they flexed into quotation marks at the end. He tried not to take too long to process, but he was honestly stuck on the older-sister-works-for-S.H.I.E.L.D. part. "What was the job?"
"Three guesses?" she perked up at the idea, but when Peter only stared blankly at her, Lizzie sighed. "It's not fun when I'm the only one talking. We can't play a game or something?"
"What was the job?" he repeated, keeping her from running away from his question.
"Surveillance."
"Over who?" Lizzie wasn't going to give him that one, and when her only answer was to stare at Peter like he'd truly lost brain cells from the concussion. He stood there, confused, until finally it dawned on him. "Oh. That's how you met him?"
"Mhm."
"So...you were a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. At thirteen."
Peter swallowed down the thought in the back of his mind about how cool that was. When he was thirteen, he was binge-watching Star Wars in his matching pajamas. He had a feeling based off the way Lizzie was acting, it wasn't as cool as he thought.
"Associate. Not an agent. I had school there. I trained with my sister. Then I'd go home, and I would go on my runs with Steve. That was my life for four months," she realized how monotone she sounded halfway through and pulled her lips to one side. Eye contact felt difficult now. "Do you remember my accident?"
His eyes naturally drifted to her right shoulder. "Humorous shaft fracture."
Lizzie's head lifted, and Peter noticed how surprised she was.
"You remembered that?" she asked in disbelief.
He flushed under the comment, readjusting his weight and pushing out his chest with a bit of false confidence. "Well, yeah. I just—I don't know. It seemed important. Is that...was that the accident?"
She hummed as a silent 'yes,' breaking eye connect and glancing down at her knuckles. The scars from when she'd broken the keypad were faint now, but those were the smallest of her recoveries from that day. "The S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters was in Washington, D.C...the Triskelion. I've been in therapy on-and-off for almost three years now, and I have still never told anyone everything that happened to me that day. Crazy, right?"
Sad, Peter thought, may have been the better word. He tried to figure out where to go from here—he knew how deeply he could screw this up—and decided whatever his first thought was, don't say it and do the opposite. What he wanted to comment on first was the fact that she had BEEN at the TRISKELION BATTLE. He didn't say that. Instead, he took the time to slowly sit down on the ground with crossed-legs. Still a safe distance away, but reasonably close that he could hear her if she mumbled (without his heightened senses).
Lizzie watched him as he did so, a brief smirk cracking on her face despite how much of a contrast it created. With flushed cheeks and eyes burning for a break, she likely looked deranged to Peter and tried not to become self-conscious of herself in her most vulnerable place. Well, that's not entirely true. Even she could feel herself holding back in her words, but that was her only protection. Peter Parker always had a way of listening, and she'd run into this problem months ago when she opened up about Aunt Peggy.
"I can't give you an exact timeline. I was locked in the headquarters for over forty-eight hours without sunlight. Sometime before that was when Director Fury died," she wouldn't give that one up. Lizzie moved on quickly. "And sometime after that, Steve was wanted by the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. division and everyone continued to hide me away in back rooms. Director Fury redacted and specifically left out details about me."
Why? he wanted to ask. To protect her, idiot, he answered himself.
"There was a man. My teacher...uh, Monroe," she said his name like it pained her to do so, physically affected by the owner of the surname. Peter stayed quiet and allowed her the time, watching her mouth press together in a tight line. Briefly, her nose scrunched up as she avoided the thoughts, and then she shook her head and returned back to her knuckles. "What happened isn't something I think I can talk about right now, but...I injured my knee in a fight with him. I can't remember what exactly—it seemed so dumb compared to the rest—but I smashed my fist into the keypad to lock him inside."
Peter didn't want to imagine what could have happened in the missing section of her story. Then he had the debilitating task of replaying every word, sentence, and threat Lizzie ever said to him—trying to figure out where the clues were in her warnings. What had been done?
"I watched two men die...the second one, his blood was in my hair for days," she revealed in a tone that suggested hearing it out loud was a surprise to her too. Peter paled in a sudden wave of nausea, watching as she leaned her head back against the wall, blinking away the collecting tears. "At least, I think it was his. Carson's was underneath my fingernails. I scrubbed for days, and that was significantly harder to do with one working arm."
"What happened to it?...your shoulder."
"Ah, that's a bit of everything," she started off, her bad shoulder hanging lower than her left. He'd noticed it before, and had he not known about the accident, he would have just assumed softball was to blame. "There was a lot of damage to my shoulder. Bear with me, because I've read the medical reports a billion times from physical therapy...Humorous shaft fracture, which was caused by a direct blow to the arm, sometime around Rumlow but my sister had hurt the same shoulder a few days before? I think? I needed immediate surgery for it because it was causing radial nerve damage—so losing mobility in my spine, apparently. That didn't happen, but they couldn't do the surgery until they fixed my separated shoulder...which happened sometime around me pulling Carson down the tarmac. I felt it then."
"I know it doesn't mean much, but for what it's worth, to have all of that happen to you and you're still playing softball and slicing my webs—"
"You made it too easy."
Peter knew she appreciated the lighthearted break, a light brimming underneath her drying eyes. Either they were a lighter brown or he was losing his eyesight in the identical walls of the vault. "I didn't even know who you were, and I thought Black Widow was fighting me the whole time—"
"—wow, thank you so much," she interjected, exaggerating but still truly touched by how her training had paid off when it mattered most. "What time is it? I don't have any way of knowing."
"KAREN says it's three-twenty-seven in the morning...so, what, three more hours til sunrise? The decathlon starts at ten? We can make it back in time," he rationalized, speed-plotting out how he was going to get them out of there and be at the hotel with Lizzie and a good excuse. He stopped before he moved, eyeing her cautiously. "...truce? Until we get out of here, and then you can kill me."
Lizzie looked to be considering for longer than Peter appreciated, but finally she nodded. Looking up to where the keypad was, she started to figure out how in the hell they were going to try every possible sequence.
"Fine. Truce."
"For what it's worth, I understand the double-lives thing. Obviously not as long as you have but...it eats at you, y'know? When you get excited or something, and then realize you can't tell that person because they don't know about that you..." he trailed off, and his own impression of living in two worlds was small compared to the dent it had left on Lizzie.
Lizzie cracked a soft smile, clasping her hands together on top of her knees. "Remember when I told you you wouldn't want the real answer? Take me as the answer."
The suggestion that the person in front of him was a look into his future unsettled him. One of two reasons: (one) because he hoped that he would never find himself in such a painful odds with every single obstacle in life; and (two) the notion that Lizzie Carter believed she was some kind of lesson against things. Emotionally-distant and suffering-mild-anger-issues aside, even he could see what she had accomplished in her fifteen (almost sixteen) years. Significantly more, apparently, that 98% of the world would never know.
"You're not all that bad, partner."
He felt satisfaction at seeing her taken aback by the use of her nickname. Peter would admit, he didn't like the way it fell off his tongue compared to Lizzie. "I'll remember that."
"I'm sure you remember what I ate for lunch last Tuesday—"
Lizzie rolled her eyes dramatically and pushed up off the ground, doing a few twists and turns of her body once again. "It doesn't work like that. I don't need to remember exactly what it is. I've seen you eat enough at lunch over the last year and a half to know what you get. I also know Midtown's weekly-cafeteria schedule, which was chicken salad or hamburger, and you definitely didn't trust the chicken salad enough to try it because it looked foul—"
"Whatever," he grumbled, hating to be schooled by the girl. As she walked away from him, he scrambled up to his feet to follow after her. "Where are you going?"
"Back to the container with the weapons. If they're alien tech or S.H.I.E.L.D.-sanctioned, they might be able to get us out of here—don't say anything. I don't want to hear it."
Peter threw his head back defensively. "You didn't even know what I was going to say!"
"'You couldn't have said that an hour ago,' feels like something you'd say to piss me off," and she was right, because that was the first thought in Peter's two-step plan on talking with Lizzie. "Do you think KAREN can identify any of the weapons?"
"She said yes. You'd know if you put your headphone in."
"Oh, I had it in for the part where you were talking about Liz."
"That was private!"
"You were talking to a recorded AI on a shared line, Parker. It's not like any of this is new information to me...oh, here. Go through that duffel bag, and I'll sort through this one over here then we can work our way up."
"Okay."
Not a few seconds later and they got to work.
"Oh, hey! Lizzie, it's the glowy-thingy."
"That glowy-thing is an explosive Chitauri energy core."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—you mean we've been carrying around a BOMB?!"
While unsurprised, the revelation didn't ease Lizzie's nerves in any way knowing that Peter still had the bomb somewhere. Hopefully, by 'we' he means 'he' and not the 'we' that she was thinking—or that he had an imaginary friend who was looking after it while he was in D.C.. Anything other than her current worst assumption. Because if so, she might give up completely on helping Parker despite the heart-to-heart and truce. As he panicked, she stood up and threw her hands out in the air, giving up on their task and deciding that she may as well use one of the weapons on herself. At this point, brain-cells were being lost in the company of the nuisance of a teenage boy.
"It would require radiation to transform it into an explosive state."
"No, no, no, no, no—"
"Peter," Lizzie drew his name out slowly, careful not to overreact to the worst thought in her brain right now. "Please tell me you didn't do what I think you did."
"I did," he confessed without skipping a beat and turned to her panicked, his eyes wide and his phone smothering his ear. "I totally did!— and Ned has it right now, and I'm not getting any reception so there's no way for me to tell him that it's a BOMB—!"
Lizzie bit down the worst of her words, choosing them methodically and holding her tongue in the process. Be more like her father in these moments, and a little less like her mother. "Tell me that you told him it was dangerous, at least."
"I mean...he knows about the weapons, but..."
"Peter—"
"I know! I know! What do we do?!"
"We can't do anything!" she threw her hands up in exasperation once again, unable to keep her arms still. "We're stuck in here, remember? Look, we just have to hope that he won't go through anything with radiation. They won't have any security check-ins for teams at the Decathlon. As soon as we get out, you call and tell him to throw it in the ocean like you should have done—"
Her voice raised at the end, the only time she faltered in trying to keep her cool while Peter panicked over his best friend's safety (specifically after putting his best friend's safety at risk, but she wouldn't say that now).
"Okay. Okay, okay, but we have to try something until then, okay? I can't just wait around. Maybe KAREN can help me override the lock on the door."
After a few moments, Lizzie threw all ideas to the wind. "Okay."
"Wait, really?"
"I'm trying not to scream at you right now, so please, let's just go and try this."
"Yeah, okay, going."
While Lizzie prided herself in having a high IQ, the mere thought of code-breaking into a lock that held the most dangerous weapons in the universe seemed exhausting. And so she decided to be the moral support as Peter hung upside down from the ceiling, then five minutes would pass before the blood rushed to his head and he would climb down to bother her. After thirty minutes of failing to override the lock system for the door, Lizzie fell asleep against the side of the wall underneath him, using her backpack against the cement as a makeshift pillow.
Unbeknownst to her that Peter had stopped sometime in between one of his five-minute-breaks to drape his Decathlon jacket over her. Not that it did much except emphasize her reddened cheeks. Even in her sleep, Lizzie Carter did not look relaxed nor content by any means. Furrowed brows and clenched teeth, and every so often he would hear a sharp inhale from her that scared him half to death every time. He knew she needed the sleep, though, and he prayed that whatever haunted her would stop.
Eventually, it did. Her shoulders relaxed, and for the first time, he thought about her age—just how young she looked now, nearly sixteen—and that meant she had looked even younger when she joined S.H.I.E.L.D.. Peter worked in near-silence, aside from the muttered conversation he had with KAREN, who had even requested to play white noise for MJ through the speaker in his suit (which Peter also didn't know he had). Only when Lizzie woke up several hours later, much to Peter's relief because he had started yawning nonstop, did he realize what time it actually was. He would have panicked had he not internally-prioritized, deciding what was most important to him right now.
"...I have a plan," he started off when she was somewhat coherent enough to blink in his direction, then he jumped down in front of her so that he could talk with her clearly. "It's ten forty-five right now—" the time change made her eyes widen in alarm, realizing that the expected six-am unlocking would not be happening like they thought. "So, we have exactly fifteen minutes to get out of here...yeah, we missed check-in and there's no way we will make it...so, now the goal is to get to Ned and get you to the games. KAREN said that the Washington Monument is twenty-two minutes away by car, and I figured swinging would knock that in half—"
"No, I'm not doing that ever again," she protested with the utmost finality, her stomach churning at the thought. Peter stared at her, waiting for her alternative suggestion because he was not leaving her here. "I know someone who lives in D.C., and I'll call them the second that I get out of these walls and get service—or I'll ask KAREN to, I don't know. I'll risk the consequences, as long as I make my first game at one p.m., I'll be fine. Eugene is an alternate for a reason."
"I'm sorry, who is this someone?"
Lizzie turned defensive. "Why does it matter?"
"Because the only people you said you knew in D.C. were S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, Steve, and your sister," he listed off with ease, proving once again that he did listen to her when she talked. Her eyes narrowed and he raised his eyebrows at her, challenging the expression. "So? Which one is it?"
"None of the above."
───○☆ ✸ ☆○───
"It worked! It worked!"
Another hour, and finally, the large doors of their prison cell opened not long after Peter exclaimed those words. Lizzie sat up instantly, reaching for her backpack to sling over her shoulders. Then, she went to find her Airpod while Peter scrambled back down, his feet hitting with a thud directly next to her. He ripped off his mask for a moment to grin at her, pleasantly surprised and seemingly rewarded when she smiled back.
"Good job, partner."
"Thanks! Well, I mean, KAREN helped—"
"Take the compliment, Parker," and then Peter was nodding to himself with flushed cheeks, going over to the wall to collect his things into his backpack. She held out the jacket still draped over her. "Here, don't forget this...thank you."
Peter grabbed the jacket with a nod, then he shoved it in his backpack. No use in it now. Both of them started in the direction of the open door, Peter in a greater hurry than she was for obvious reasons. The second Lizzie put the Airpod in, she heard KAREN's voice. "Hello, MJ. We are in a private line. What phone number would you like for me to call?"
"Hi, KAREN. Casey Johnson."
Over the system, she heard Peter shout to her as he squeezed through the door, walking backwards again. "Hey! Are you sure you're getting the ride?!"
"Yes, go!"
"Okay! Tell KAREN to connect to me if you need me! I gotta call Ned and tell him about the bomb!"
As a result of that sentence, Lizzie wondered if either of them would be in any of this mess had Peter heeded her warnings the first time. Answer: definitive no. Watching him leave as conspicuous as a Spider-Thing could make themselves, her path to the exit was more strategic. She continued to scale the side of the wall until she reached the entrance, noticing that it was wide-open. The rolling of a truck on the other end made her move around the corner, watching as it entered through into the Deep Storage Site and passed by her. Before the gate could close on her, she jogged through it, instantly disoriented by her surroundings in a new place.
Two left turns, and five minutes in a car going approximately forty miles-per-hour, Lizzie drilled that into her head from the moment they left the gas station and got stuck in the storage container. The only problem was that the destination was a sketchy, abandoned gas-station and the facility behind her seemed considerably more safe (albeit until they got her for trespassing).
"Connecting to CASEY JOHNSON. Would you like for me to temporarily send her your location as well?"
"Yes, please."
"Call connecting now."
"Hello?" was the first word heard on the other line, belonging to a voice that she hadn't heard in over a year. A ghostly twinge of pain struck her chest and she started walking down the gravel drive that led to the building behind her. "Hello? Anyone there?"
Lizzie inhaled sharply and knew she needed to respond. "Good thing you picked up. Hey, Casey...it's Lizzie. I need a favor."
"What's going on?"
"You got your drivers license, right? Can you...ah, come pick me up? I'm twenty-two minutes out of D.C., and I can't really explain why, so please don't ask questions—but the decathlon starts soon, and my games are today—"
An array of sounds muffled the audio and had her wincing away the urge to rip the headphone out, but then Casey's voice returned with the sound of a door closing behind her. "Alright. I'm on my way. I just got the text on your location. My maps says I can make it in twenty-four. I'll try and be there in twenty."
"Be safe, please."
"I'll see you soon, Brooklyn."
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Author's Note:
I'M SO SORRY y'all. I couldn't not end it here and I understand and feel the anger. As a fan of this book, I too am mad at myself. But it had to be done. It had to be done.