Memories of Home

xx. where the devils meet

She was here. For how long who knew ...but ...She was back.

And she had woken up to a nightmare.

Words echoed in her head. 

Expect Disappointment. You won't be disappointed.

It had been sluggish at first, but the words had been a call.

His voice had reached her through the ice, through the stone. They had run so strongly through her bloodstream, that she had broken through Dahlia and had risen up to meet him, to find him. To ask him the question that scared her from the start. 

The phrase itself had been like a lock and a key. A failsafe. 

Of course. Strange probably knew that, and out of all the people knew this phrase was tossed so frequently between her and Peter after he would tell them how annoying they were...But he also knew that of all things people could depend on, was apparently their dark sarcasm and to be true to themselves when it counted. 

And Peter.

She could depend on Peter to know her inside and out. 

Her heart clenched as MJ opened her own eyes again, wide and searching.

She found him on the ground below her, clutching his side.

Her brain still had Dahlia within it, so again the quick assessment told her she had to get to him quick. Had to get to him because there was a threat. And the threat was..

Harry.

No.

She remembered then.Beyond Dahlia, there was the Goblin.

Her memories were coming back so sporadically, she didn't know what she could trust...but she knew that the Goblin was Norman Osborne...not Harry. 

Norman was an invader from another universe and Peter had risked it all to let him go back. to...to let them all go back to another life without him.

Harry wasn't the same monster. He couldn't be.

She shifted to look up at him, to see the way his pupils widened with the excitement of having power in this situation.

No, she realized.

To have power in the chaos.

Because that's all their lives had been was chaos.

As she told her self he wasn't a monster, she realized the absolute hypocrisy of it all as the reality hit her.

He had been a monster. And so had she. Right along side him.

The darkness had taken hold like a sickness, and she felt like she wasn't waking up from a nightmare, but within one. The memories of the last few weeks reminded her exactly what she had been up to. The dark voice within her laughed...hinting that she might not have long in control. 

She had to make it count.

MJ used her voice, for the first time in what felt like forever.

"Harry. Please."

His crazed eyes shifted, looking down at her...distaste and dispair flickering across his own purple hazed eyes as he saw the clarity in hers and the lack of the purple hue.

"Well, well. Good morning, sunshine." He crooned. Desperately. Brokenly. He stroked a finger along her face as if it was the last time he'd see it, before all too quickly turning his focus back to Peter.

"Seems like you always get the fairytale ending don't you, Peter? Always have!" He laughed darkly as he launched the antidote over the building.

Peter leapt.