coveted magics, 13
Blood was running everywhere, but that was barely registering in Harry’s brain. Two fresh corpses lay on the ground of what probably used to be a dining room, and even though Harry vaguely knew in the back of his mind who they were, it didn’t matter. A boy was screaming in grief and pain, and it didn’t matter. Gwen was there, somewhere, in his peripheral vision, but Harry couldn’t muster up the cognitive space to actually register their presence or what they were doing.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
All of his senses were honed in on one singular presence within the crumbling, smoldering room. A tall woman. Dark brown, wavy almost-ringlets that hung past her shoulders. Thin eyebrows that angled down below her temples. Glowing purple irises that pierced straight through Harry’s very being. Darkened, glowing hands empowered with the very same hues that emanated from his own magic.
“Mom…?” Harry tried to say, but the word was trapped behind so much confusion, shock and raw fear. This was the woman of his nightmares. The one who taught him his first spells, who held him when he was small, feeling ever so absent all the while. The one who hurt him when he failed to meet set expectations. The one who left, who walked away, who finally gave his family freedom.
This was Agatha Harkness, the Destroyer of Salem, the Witch-Hunting Witch, the Right Hand of Chthon. All his teenage years, Harry had been plagued with nightmares of her. In some, she came back to drain every ounce of his power for herself. In others, she was simply there, watching. Watching, and frowning.
She was supposed to be locked away in Westview. When Harry had heard about that, he’d done enough research to know that the sheer strength of Wanda’s chaos magic should have been unbreakable by all but the Scarlet Witch herself. There was supposed to be no way Agatha could break free. The day Harry learned that was the day his nightmares had stopped. But he’d had a bad feeling.
And it wasn’t just today. This bad feeling had been coming and going in waves, and at one point he’d even gone over some of his texts regarding the history of his mother out of an anxious fear – and yet, he dismissed the possibility. To him, it was a desperately needed peace that Agatha was locked away. He couldn’t believe that she might be freed.
Yet, here she was. Standing over him, laughing at the carnage and destruction of an innocent family, and staring right through him. Did she even see him? Did she care enough to remember who he was? A faint thought in the back of Harry’s mind registered that she was almost certainly after Tommy. If Billy’s powers had awoken the day Wundagore was destroyed, then so too were Tommy’s. And that meant their powers had Chthonic energy – exactly what Agatha fed off. She could steal almost any witch’s power, but it was those whose power was laced with Chthonic energy that she truly relished, witch or otherwise.
That small, faint part of him knew that he needed to get up and fight, to protect Tommy, and to protect Gwen. To protect himself too, perhaps. But he couldn’t. As Agatha stood towering over him, as he knelt on the ground, Harry was paralysed. The fear was too strong, and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t act. He’d just disappoint mother again.
He couldn’t stand up to her. Of course he couldn’t. Him? Trying to take on Agatha Harkness? His power paled in comparison to hers; it always had. He was the disappointment, the progeny that clearly hadn’t taken to his inherited powers in any way worth recognising. He was just poor little Harry Osborn, son of a rich man, a failed witch.
There was no hope.
Gwen couldn’t believe this. They knew who the witch across the room was, even if Harry bad barely ever spoken a word about her in all the time they’d known him. The sight before her was horrific, and bloody. Deep, smoldering lacerations ran up and down the bodies of the Shepherds, the heat clearly not sufficient cauterization to stop blood from spilling everywhere.
The witch’s hands glowed with power, a power that Gwen was hesitant to believe she could stand up to. Harry could, she knew that, but he was frozen to the spot, having fallen to the ground the moment he saw his estranged mother. Tommy had just been flung past Gwen, having tried to attack Agatha in a deeply understandable fit of rage. He’d been fast – Gwen had saw him move, registered the extent of his speed. And if that speed wasn’t enough to get in and score a hit on the witch? Gwen didn’t know what they were supposed to do.
Channeling her power to buy time to think, seeing time pass at a fraction of its usual speed even if it hurt to do without moving, Gwen assessed her surroundings more. There was nothing that she could use. No appliances or functional circuitry that she could overload to set up traps that might balance out the difference in power. If Wanda was here, maybe things would have looked less bleak.
No, under the circumstances, the only thing Gwen could do was make a tough call. They had to find a way to grab Tommy and Harry and escape. But before they had a chance to make their first move, Tommy started moving again. Wide eyed, with tear tracks already running down his face, Tommy turned, and he ran. And he was fast.
Gwen glanced towards Harry. Her very best friend in the whole world, who was there for her whenever she needed, who had gone through the thick and thin of life and kept Gwen sane. And she knew. She knew if she grabbed him to carry him out of here, she wouldn’t be able to keep up with Tommy and keep him safe. There was only one thing stopping the tough call being one to abandon Wanda’s son and protect their platonic soulmate instead.
It was a gut instinct, one that Gwen knew she would be questioning with deep-seated guilt in the weeks to come, but one she had to trust. It was all about the way Agatha was looking at Harry. Rather, it was like she was looking through him. Like she didn’t see him at all, or perhaps she just didn’t care. Between that, and the fact that Gwen knew that Harry was strong enough to protect himself, even just for a little while, they made their call.
Gwen turned, and chased after the boy who couldn’t defend himself. If Agatha gave chase – if she was at all capable of tracking Tommy down and catching up – Gwen needed to be there to at least try and keep him safe. So she ran, and she ran, and she ran. Tommy’s path was betrayed by a blurring trail of blue-ish afterimages, and Gwen followed it. Perhaps they were just the smallest bit faster, or perhaps Tommy was too traumatized to run properly. Either way, Gwen managed to catch up.
But by the time she did, they were miles out of the city. Gwen had to tackle Tommy off a too-narrow highway to get him to stop, and they tumbled across cold, grassy ground. Gwen had to pin him down to make sure that he wouldn’t keep running, because she had every intention to go back for Harry as soon as possible. For that, they needed Tommy to be mentally present and on board with some kind of plan.
Unfortunately, Gwen knew that as far as Tommy was concerned, someone he’d never met was chasing him after he watched his parents get murdered, and his trust was going to be in short supply.
“Snap out of it, Tommy!” Gwen yelled, hoping that she might get through to him.
Eyes even wider than before, the boy stared up at her. “They- I- What-”
Gwen lightened the pressure of their hold just a little. “Tommy, stop. Breathe.”
Slowly, he acquiesced. He took in one deep breath, and then another. And then faster. Faster. Faster.
Shit, Gwen silently swore. He’s having a panic attack.
There was no time to help this kid ride it out, but she could neither safely leave him here nor carry him and run while he was in this state. Gwen had one idea, and it was risky as all hell. It was something she’d been learning about in her independent biochemistry research. About how the nervous system functioned off electrical activity, and a theoretical paper about how the right kind of electric shock might be used to calm down an over-activated nervous system during a moment of crisis. The paper was suggesting some kind of last ditch technological treatment to be used by paramedics and in emergency medicine situations.
But the research was still in Phase 1. It had barely been tested, and it was risky as all hell. If she did this wrong, Gwen might stop the kid’s heart. But they knew they could also restart it again, and it was worth a try. At least, it seemed like it would be worth the try given how little time Gwen had for anything else.
Carefully, Gwen placed her palm over Tommy’s stomach, aiming for the part of the vagus nerve that ran through there. She took in one deep breath, and let a tiny electrical pulse lance into the boy’s body. He gasped, and then his breathing slowed.
It had worked. By some ridiculous stroke of luck, Gwen’s desperate idea worked, and the kid’s whole nervous system was beginning to relax and get out of a sympathetic state. His muscles relaxed, and Gwen let go.
“Tommy,” Gwen called to him. “I’ve got you, Tommy.”
“What the fuck is happening?” the kid croaked. “This has to be a dream. A really, really bad dream.”
Swallowing a lump in their throat, Gwen’s whole body sagged a little. “I wish I could tell you that it was, kid. And I’m so sorry that we didn’t make it sooner.”
“They’re… they’re dead. They’re fucking DEAD,” Tommy screamed. “Is it my fault?”
“It’s not your fault, Tommy,” Gwen insisted. “Never, ever take the blame for a bad person making a choice to hurt you.”
“I-” Tommy started, and then stopped. “You- you’re Zapdash? You’re real?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Gwen confirmed for him. She stood up, and offered him a hand up too. “There’s so much going on here that you need to know, but we don’t have time for that now. We left my friend back here, and he’s our ticket to safety. We have to go back.”
“Go back?” Tommy baulked at the idea. “That’s suicide!”
Gwen groaned. “We have to. We’re gonna be really fast. We’ll grab him, get out of there, and get to safety. Then I can tell you everything.”
“I… I don’t know about this,” Tommy said uncertainly, and he started to back away.
Managing to remember Peter’s story of when he picked up Billy, Gwen tried one thing that she hoped might work to earn this kid’s trust. If it worked for Peter, maybe it’d work for them. So they took off their mask, hoping that nobody within the few cars passing by saw her face in the light of the setting sun. “Tommy, my name is Gwen Stacy, and I was sent here to protect you. You’re more important than you realise, and I swear I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe. In order to do that, we have to go back. Okay?”
“This isn’t-” he started to say after pinching himself. Seeming to realise that this truly was all real, Tommy sighed. “Okay.”
Gwen held out their hand. “Here, hold this. We’re going to run together, okay?”
He gave a weak nod, and grasped onto Gwen’s hand. And then they ran. Back into the city suburbs, back to Tommy’s utterly destroyed family home. By the time they got back, Agatha was gone. Harry was still there, on his knees, staring at the destruction around him listlessly.
Not willing to trust the apparent absence of the witch fully, Gwen turned to face Tommy. “Stay with him. If she comes back, he’ll keep you safe.”
“Right, uhuh,” Tommy managed, but it didn’t seem like he was paying any attention. Rather, his eyes were fixed on one of the corpses. Only then did the feeling of true horror finally hit, and Gwen had to fight back the urge to empty her stomach out onto the floor.
Instead, Gwen focused on survival. They charged up, and sped around the neighbourhood as fast as they could, checking everywhere to make sure Agatha was truly gone. Only when they were truly satisfied did Gwen return to the house. They could hear sirens approaching from the distance, which meant time was now especially limited.
Relieved that Tommy hadn’t run off again, Gwen crouched down in front of Harry and grabbed his hands. “You’re safe, Har. She’s gone. I need you to snap out of it, and get us out of here.”
Slowly, Harry’s eyes focused. Rather than saying anything in response, he weakly raised his right hand and waved a circular motion to conjure up another portal, back to the apartments. As soon as the portal was stable, Gwen sped up and rushed both Harry and Tommy through.
And then, in a brief moment of realisation, Gwen ran back through the portal and grabbed the bodies of Tommy’s parents. He deserved a say in what happened to them now. It was the first time Gwen had needed to carry a corpse, and her stomach finally rebelled and emptied itself once she let go of the lifeless forms.
“What did you want to talk about?” Peter asked, resting his head on his hands on the kitchen island and looking up at Harley.
Harley let out a nervous sounding inhale, and Peter already couldn’t help but wonder what might be on his mind to make him like this. Earlier in the morning, he’d asked Peter if they could talk about something serious later in the day. Now was that time, and Peter was starting to hope that he hadn’t done something wrong. “I, um… I guess I haven’t talked to you about this much but I grew up Catholic and it kinda sucked.”
“Mmm,” Peter hummed. He wasn’t quite sure where this was going, but now had an inkling that it wasn’t about him or anything he did. “You know I’ll listen if you want to share things.”
A soft smile creased its way onto Harley’s face. “Yeah, I know. And I think I do wanna talk to you about that more sometime, and I’ve been workin’ on it with my therapist too. It’s just… the Catholic guilt and everything wasn’t good for me as a gay kid growin’ up in Tennessee. I kind of just… associated all religion with what I experienced there, which I guess is why I’ve been givin’ you your space to go to shul as your own thing.”
Peter’s eyes widened, and his own smile stretched into place. “Wanna come with and check it out?”
“Well…” Harley paused, and took another deep breath. “Yes. I, um. I guess I’ve been researchin’ Judaism on my own a bit, and I don’t know, I guess what I’ve seen so far resonates with me? And the way you talk and act about the community you’re a part of at that shul seems so wildly different to what I’m used to.”
Peter laughed a little, and raised his head long enough to stretch out one of his hands for Harley to hold. “It’d be my pleasure to bring you along, Harls! And hey, if you seriously decide you want to convert or something, I’m totally sure that Danny will help you every step of the way.”
Harley took Peter’s hand, and before he had a chance to say anything, Peter pulled his hand close enough to kiss his fingers. “Uh. God damn, darlin’, I’m tryin’ to say somethin’ here and you’re out here makin’ me be way too gay!”
“Isn’t that my job?” Peter looked up at his boyfriend with his best innocent face.
Harley sighed. “I suppose it is. So… maybe I could come along this week?”
“Done deal, I bet you’re gonna love-” Peter started to say.
And then, suddenly, there was screaming from the hallway outside the apartment. An unfamiliar, and very pained voice, screaming with no reprieve. Peter and Harley exchanged a quick glance, and then both rushed for the door to see what was happening. Peter got to it first, and pulled it open to see a frankly horrifying sight.
Harry and Gwen were there, suited up, with a teenage boy who had to be Tommy. Tommy was the one screaming, and it didn’t take Peter long to figure out why. Laying by either side of Gwen were two corpses, each beginning to make a small pool of blood on the wooden floorboards. Peter hadn’t even known that anything was going on with Tommy, but since he did know that the kid likely had speed powers, it made sense that Wanda would have gone straight to Gwen, and Harry for transport since he was the only one with a sling ring and the ability to use it.
“Shit,” Peter and Harley both cursed in unison. They were quickly joined in the hallway by a very panicked-looking Wanda and Daisy right behind her. Wanda looked hesitant, like she wanted to rush to comfort her son but didn’t know if it was appropriate.
Peter was immediately thinking of the noise, and not wanting to draw attention from the downstairs neighbours. There would be way too many questions to deal with if they came upstairs and saw any of this. He turned to Harley quickly, trusting that Harley would be level headed enough to handle everything up here. “I’ll go downstairs and talk to the neighbours if they come to investigate. Get everyone inside our place? It’s the most noise-proof.”
“On it,” Harley agreed quickly, and Peter was off. He’d had more practice at this sort of thing, and more of a mind for it, than he’d have liked to admit, what with how many times he’d come home bloodied in the year before moving to Boston.
As he gently treaded down the stairs, Peter searched his mind for which of his many excuses he could use to placate the neighbours. In all the times he’d loudly collapsed through the window into his New York apartment or not paid enough attention and had his own blood spill out past the front door, he’d gotten practice at this.
It took less than a minute for doors to begin opening, by which point in time Peter was sitting on the third step from the bottom, trying his best to look relaxed – much though it was pure performance.
“Sorry about the noise,” Peter sighed. In the end, he decided to work with something close enough to the truth. “One of my brother’s friends was over and just found out about a death in his family.”
“Oh no, that’s horrible,” a kindly looking middle-aged man said. It was then that Peter realised he didn’t know anything about his downstairs neighbours at all.
“Can we do anything to help? I think I have some leftover soup I could heat up,” offered the woman from the middle apartment.
Peter shook his head, and offered both of them a smile. “We’ve got it covered, promise. I just came down because I didn’t want you guys to worry. Can’t imagine it’s easy to hear a sound like that.”
“Look man, that sounds tough,” the middle-aged man said. “Look after the kid and make sure he gets home safe.”
“Will do,” Peter said politely, and turned to head back upstairs. The screaming that he could barely hear through his apartment’s soundproofing had settled down already, but that didn’t mean things were any better. He made sure to be quiet and slow re-entering his home, to reduce any chance of startling and dysregulating Tommy any more.
When he got back inside, Gwen and Wanda were sitting on either side of Tommy on the sofa, with Harley, Harry and Billy looking on in concern. The bodies were nowhere to be seen either inside or outside of the apartment – and Peter’s best guess was that Harry took them somewhere safe and out of sight. Tommy had moved from screaming to sobbing, and Peter knew that this was going to be a long night.