WHEN THE DARKNESS COMES ━ Peter Parker

o7. Calm Down

SEVEN CALM DOWN

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     Somehow they ended up on the subway once again, this time with a new location in mind. It has been forever since Lyra had found time to visit her grandmother, but now seemed like the perfect time since she was the only living person who the curse had skipped. There was a good chance she knew far more about it than Lyra or her father. Angelina Jericho was the closest thing Lyra had to a mother figure, the woman had helped raise her after the death of her mother and Lyra would never forget that.

"So, she survived the curse?" Peter asked as they stood in a crowded subway car for the second time that day.

"Jeez, say that any louder, why don't you?" Lyra scoffed, but shook her head, "And no, she didn't survive, it just... never got to her. Same way certain genes will skip a generation, I guess. Some people get mental health issues or heart problems, I get a generational curse."

Peter shrugged, "That just makes you lucky. Hey, kidding!"

He rubbed the spot on his arm that she had smacked, looking at her with a pout that could only be compared to a puppy-dog. The subway screeched to a halt and the doors opened. Grabbing Peter by the arm, she pulled him off of the train and onto the platform. Her grandmother's small apartment she lived in by herself (she had always been an independent woman and her father refused to put her in a home until she asked or until she couldn't live alone anymore) wasn't far from the subway station and as they emerged from underground, she pulled Peter along. She had made this journey probably hundreds of times since the death of her mother -- it was practically muscle memory at this point.

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket. With a sigh she stopped and pulled it out, seeing a text from Mel, How's the coffee date with Parker ;)

"Oh God," Lyra exclaimed as she didn't respond, pocketing her phone with a groan as she kept walking, "My friends think we're on a date."

"You know, you don't have to sound so grossed out," Peter whined as they stopped in front of her grandmother's building. Lyra had her own key code as she buzzed herself in and opened the door.

Before she opened the door to her grandma's apartment, she whipped around to face Peter, "I don't want my friend getting the wrong idea because, and please don't take offense to this, dating really isn't my priority right now let alone dating you. I kinda have bigger fish to fry."

"Excuse you, I have priorities, too. Superhero, remember?" Peter offered, a shocked looking expression on his face, "I'm just a shitty liar and came up with coffee on the spot. Who cares if your friends make assumptions? It's not like they're right."

Lyra sighed, knowing the boy was probably right. She knew the truth and that was more important than whatever her friends thought. Besides, it wasn't like they were the type of friends to go spreading bullshit around the school without knowing if it was accurate or not. She really shouldn't be so bothered right now, but something about her friends thinking Lyra's relationship with Peter was anything but platonic was just... weird. Yeah, weird.

"What is all this yapping outside my door? Oh, hi, darling, who's this?" The door swung open to reveal Angelina Jericho herself, her expression shifting from annoyance to joy once she realized it was her granddaughter standing in front of her.

"This is my friend, Peter, uh, can we come in?" Lyra asked, knowing the answer would be a yes no matter what. As expected, her grandmother opened the door wider and they entered. Lyra took her normal spot on the woman's green velvet couch that was probably about to fall apart -- but it had been on the brink of falling apart for years so Lyra wasn't so afraid anymore -- and motioned for Peter to sit next to her.

"Tea? Coffee?" the woman offered but Lyra just shook her head, "So, what's going on? You got my birthday present, right?"

Lyra nodded, "Yes, thank you. Uh, speaking of birthdays --"

The woman's expression soured as she seemed to realize exactly where this was going, "I should have known something was wrong as soon as your father stopped calling me every other day. That man never leaves me alone since your mother and now... Oh, Lyra, please tell me it's not true."

"It's true," Lyra choked out, feeling the lump in her throat start to rise.

"But we're trying to break it! Break the curse," Peter spoke up in that stupid hopeful voice he always had, "And we need your help."

"This curse is unbreakable, trust me," the woman shook her head, "I watched it eat Lyra's mother alive from the inside out, I watched my daughter... I watched her become a monster. There's no cure for that."

Lyra sucked in a deep breath, fighting the urge to cry. She needed to remind herself that her grandmother had a point. Hope was a foolish thing to have in this situation since they had both seen what it did to her mother. This wasn't going to be easy, Lyra knew this, but she had let herself believe it was possible. That was her biggest mistake.

Peter seemed unphased by this, but his voice softened, "I don't know if I can let that happen to Lyra, uh, Miss Jericho. I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure we break this curse. For good, ideally, so this is nothing your family has to worry about. I was just, uh, we were wondering if you knew anything about Charles Jericho."

"Charles Jericho was a piece of shit," Angelina scoffed, "It's anything any member of this family will tell you. My mother told me so and her mother told her. He stole things that didn't belong to him, putting them in museums, on his own mantle. He never saw the value in anything, just how much money it could give him. There was one artifact, though, that he was so mesmerized by that he never sold it. He took it from its home and brought it back to his family. What he didn't know was that the artifact he found wasn't just some random art piece he was lucky enough to find, it wasn't even from this earth. Anyone who removed this alien artifact from its place would curse any and all future generations. Of course, women have to die for the mistake of a man. Typical. Some people thought that returning the artifact to its home would break the curse, but after Charles's death, it was never found."

"So, I'm screwed," the girl forced out once her grandmother finished speaking, "If no one else could find it, there's no way we can. Even then, that's only a theory and we could do all the work to find it and put it back and I might still be cursed at the end of the day. Fantastic."

"Ly, you might wanna take a deep breath," Peter instructed, placing a hand on her shoulder as his eyes were drifting down.

She looked down and sure enough, the darkened veins in her arms had spread and were more pronounced than they were earlier. Lyra gasped, holding in a cry. She turned to her grandmother, "Look what it's doing to me already. I'm only sixteen, grandma, I don't deserve this."

The woman's eyes were teary as she nodded, "I know, honey, I know. This family has failed you."