In the Light Between the Lines

Half a mile away, Peter Parker was trying his best not to have a full-scale panic attack in the middle of the afterlife. He’d woken up on his back, immobile and rigid, and been frozen like that for at least an hour. Overhead, the red-orange sky spread like a suffocating blanket of muted fire. Panic flashed through him, bolt after bolt of adrenaline. Unbidden, the thought came to him that he looked like a dead spider, stuck on its back with its limbs spread awkwardly around it. If he’d been able to, the unexpectedly apt analogy might’ve made him laugh.

It wasn’t until he’d resigned himself to paralysis that the constricting of his muscles released. Instantly, he was on his feet. Shaking, he rose to his full height, scooting his feet apart to brace himself as he took in his surroundings.

Although he’d been released from whatever trance he’d been in, it took Peter another few minutes to find his voice. Terror sunk long fangs into his throat and held on tight. He tried to steady himself, to avoid falling into the gaping pit of panic opening inside his mind. “Okay,” he said aloud, just to break the deafening silence. “It’s okay, just gotta stay calm.” Closing his eyes, he pressed his hands over his face and counted down from ten. This helped a little until it brought his lack of breathing to his attention. A new wave of crippling anxiety crashed through him, and he sank back down into a crouch, wrapping his arms around his knees.

In the void, there was nothing. Just an endless stretch of gray for as far as he could see. Balancing his chin on his knees, he breathed deeply, the way Aunt May would when “finding her calm” during bouts of morning yoga. He inhaled through his nose, then released it through his mouth. Slowly, carefully, with his hands spread like balancing weights on a scale, he stood up again.

He tried walking in circles. One summer a few years back, he and Ned had attended a week-long wilderness survival camp in Catskill Mountains State Park. Ned had been much more enthusiastic about the trip, but Peter had picked up a few tips along the way. For instance, if you’re lost or have lost something, try moving out in circles from your point of origin. This way, you’ll cover a great deal of ground without moving too far from your starting place. However, this was a tip for surviving in the woods. Not entirely applicable to the afterlife, or wherever he was. But then again, it wouldn’t hurt to try.

In the distance, someone called out. He couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from, only that it was a woman’s voice. Peter froze mid-circle and spun 360 degrees in place. His senses, already heightened, became sharp as new-cut glass.

The cry came again. This time, it was much clearer. He turned toward it. Across the gray plain, jogging toward him, was a woman’s figure obscured by distance. Instinctively, Peter took a step back. He waited to see if his heightened senses would warn him of approaching danger. Nothing happened, although he couldn’t be sure if that was just another effect of being dead or not.

“Hello!” the woman cried out. “Hi, do you know what happened? Do you know where we are?”

Peter’s heart launched into his throat. It didn’t need to beat, but it did, fierce and wild with ecstatic relief. Immediately, he was running full-tilt toward the approaching figure. “Aunt May!” he called, his voice pitching high with excitement. “May, it’s me!”

The woman stopped dead, and even at a distance, Peter could see the shock bloom across her face. And then she started running—not jogging, but full-out sprinting, toward him.

They met in the middle, falling into each other in a tangle of arms and relieved cries. “Oh, my God,” Aunt May said against Peter’s shoulder, “Peter, thank God!”

Peter felt that maybe it was a little soon for thanking anyone. Reluctantly, he pulled away. He looked at his aunt with an expression that was halfway between anxiety and relief. “Aunt May,” he started in a shaky voice. Then, not having any idea how to tell her they had both been killed by a huge, insane, grape-flavored alien for the (supposed) good of the universe, he tapered off into silence. He glanced over his shoulder, nervous and jittery and uncomfortable.

“Peter.” Aunt May put a hand on his cheek, turning his head so that he was looking at her again. “What’s wrong? Where are we? And what are you wearing?”

Peter glanced down. In a moment of stark horror, he realized he was still wearing the Iron Spider suit. But then he remembered that he was dead, and who cared if Aunt May knew the truth when they had much bigger and more terrifying fish to fry. Even so, he decided to at least try to cover his tracks one last time. “It’s a science project I’m working on with Ned,” he said lamely. “I can tell you all about it when we get out of here.”

May fixed him with a look that said she believed absolutely none of that. “Ned was with me,” she said, her voice taking on the distinctive stern note of a concerned and suspicious mother-figure. “When… when whatever happened, happened, we were in the apartment. There was something he wanted to tell me, but he couldn’t seem to get past the first few ‘well, um’s. I assumed it had something to do with you.” Peter was about to reply, but she hurried on. “Before he could tell me, everything just sort of… faded, and then I woke up here. Ned was still with me; he’s back there.” She pointed vaguely back over her shoulder. “We decided to walk in opposite directions to see if we could find anyone else, and then meet back in the middle in ten minutes or so. That was… well, probably ten minutes ago.” She frowned. “Although I can’t tell in this place. I wish I’d been wearing a watch.”

“We’re dead,” Peter blurted out before he could stop himself. Her nervous rambling had brought back his crushing anxiety, and he couldn’t bear to be the only one who knew. “I’m so sorry, Aunt May, I should’ve…” He’d been about to say I should’ve stopped this, but that would’ve led to awkward questions and even more awkward answers. Voice shaking like a tree in an earthquake, he repeated, “I’m so, so sorry.”

Aunt May must’ve seen the panicked look on his face, because she immediately moved in for another hug. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “Whatever happened, whatever comes next, at least we’re together. Right?”

Peter swallowed the lump in his throat. He closed his eyes for a moment, blinking back tears. I wish it wasn’t like this, he wanted to say. I wish you could’ve lived. In case we can never go back; I wish I could’ve saved you.

“It’s alright,” May said again. “Let’s get back to where I started. We’ll meet up with Ned, then figure out where to go from there. Okay?”

Peter nodded. The hug ended but they stayed close to each other, walking side-by-side over the gray plains.

Back in Wakanda, Natasha was getting ready to leave.

“I have to, Steve,” she said when he appeared in the doorway, frowning slightly and looking vaguely hurt and confused. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“You really won’t tell me where you’re going, huh?” Steve asked. His voice, as it had been since the Great Battle, was low and rough. These days, he always looked like he’d been crying.

Natasha’s heart clenched. She turned away, forcing another carefully folded and rolled shirt into her compressible mission pack. “Of course I will,” she said. “Just because I haven’t doesn’t mean I won’t. Ask, and I’ll tell.”

There was a trace of a smile in Steve’s next words. “Historically,” he replied, “that hasn’t exactly been the case.”

Natasha zipped up her pack and pressed the button on the side. It compressed to a quarter its size. She slung it over her shoulder, turning back to face Steve. If he’d been smiling before, he wasn’t now. She sighed. “It’s Barton,” she said. “He called last night. Apparently, his whole family dusted before his eyes.”

“Oh, my God.” Steve’s face tightened with pain. “That’s horrible. I’m so sorry, Nat.”

Natasha shook her head. She tilted her head back, blinking against the sting of impending tears. Once she’d gotten control, she looked down again. “Not your fault, Rogers,” she said. She adjusted her pack and crossed the room, ghosting past him in the doorway. For a moment she hesitated in the metallic hall beyond, looking back in the half-light of early morning. “You’ve gotta stop blaming yourself. You did everything you could.”

Steve smiled. A soft, sad smile. “Everything?”

Natasha blinked, turning away again. “Tell Princess Shuri where I’m going, and why. I don’t want her thinking I’m taking one of her Quinjets for no good reason.”

“Dagger,” Steve corrected. “The ships. They’re called Daggers.”

Natasha caught his eye and held it. “You spent a lot of time here,” she said softly. “Didn’t you?”

Steve nodded. Even in the lightless corridor, his eyes shone bright with unshed tears. “Yeah.” His voice was hoarse. “He liked it here. King T’Challa, Princess Shuri, everyone else, they did so much for him. I think…” He visibly swallowed, blinking rapidly. “…I think he was happy, Nat.”

She wanted desperately to reach for him. To wrap her arms around him and tell him it was going to be okay. But she didn’t know for sure. She couldn’t know for sure, and she wasn’t going to lie to him about that. Instead, she said, “Remember the plan, Steve. It’s not over yet.”

He half-smiled: a tiny victory. “Tell Barton I’m so sorry,” Steve said, still in that hoarse, rough voice. “And tell him we’ll get them back. All of them.”

Natasha nodded. For a long moment, she held Steve’s gaze. And then she started down the hall in the direction of the aircraft hangar. “I’ll be back ASAP,” she called over her shoulder. In the most playful tone she could muster, she added, “Don’t wait up for me, Rogers.”

“I won’t,” Steve replied. “Be safe, Nat.”

She rounded a corner and left him behind.

Shuri was 99.999% sure she was right. Of course, that 0.0001% chance she was wrong hovered in her subconscious as she adjusted variables and ran simulations late into the night. For once, she thought, it would be incredible to be wrong.

By the time morning dawned on the third day since the Great Battle, she’d slept a grand total of seven hours and consumed more coffee in two days than an average university student in a month of Mondays. Bruce Banner had lasted longer than she’d expected, but halfway through the night, he’d finally given in and slept. He was propped up in a chair across the circular lab, his mouth open as he gently snored. Although he’d told her to wake him if she needed him, she’d decided to let him rest. Mostly because she didn’t need him. But she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and he really did need the sleep.

She had just finished running a complex simulation predicting the fallout of Jupiter’s disappearance over the next few months when a flash of familiar blonde hair caught her eye. She turned to see Steve Rogers standing just outside the lab, looking for all the world like a Golden Retriever who’s brought back the wrong ball. He smiled at her, that soft, slightly sad smile that told you immediately what kind of man he was.

“Can I help you, Captain Rogers?” she asked, turning back to her simulation. Although she liked Steve, she didn’t exactly have time to cater to his emotionally fragile state when the future of mankind was at stake.

“It’s Nat,” Steve said. “Romanoff, I mean. She’s taking a Dagger ship to pick up an old friend.”

“Clint Barton,” Shuri said. “She told me.”

She read the confusion in Steve’s silence. “Oh,” he said. “She told me to tell you.”

Shuri smiled to herself. “If I had to guess,” she said, moving around a metal table as she manipulated the screen to zoom in on a particularly worrying cluster of Trojan asteroids that seemed to be making an orbital beeline for Earth, “which I don’t, then I’d say she was trying to get you to talk to someone.”

Steve laughed, more of a surprised sound than a cheerful one. “Oh,” he said again. “Yeah, that sounds like something she would do.” Another beat of silence. Then he added, “Well, I don’t want to disturb your work, so I guess I’ll just…”

Shuri saw an opportunity and took it. “Dr. Banner’s asleep,” she said, spinning to face him, “and I need an assistant to test out some new tech.” She jerked her head at a few sealed boxes stacked on the desk across the room. “Your accelerated healing makes you the perfect candidate for these trials.”

As she’d expected, Steve’s face showed none of the hesitance that most people might feel at being asked to demonstrate their accelerated healing skills. Instead, he looked relieved. “Thank you, Princess,” he said gratefully. “I’d be honored to help in whatever way I can.”

Smiling with satisfaction, Shuri zoomed back out on the simulation, adjusted a few variables, and reset it. She could spare a few minutes while the program ran to distract Steve from his problems. He was a good man, and if she could help him, she would. And besides, he was perfect for her trials.

Walking across the lab, she picked up the biggest of the metal boxes. Hefting it in her arms, she crossed to the largest table and dumped out its contents. “I was working on this before the battle,” she announced, setting the now-empty box on the ground, “but I didn’t finish it in time.”

On the table, gleaming like fish scales in moonlight, was a pile of sleek, shiny black material. Grabbing it by the shoulders, she held it up to her body. The suit fell in front of her like a waterfall of shifting, shimmering night. She turned to Steve, raising an eyebrow. “What do you think?” she asked. “You want to help me test it out?”

“Oh, my God,” said Steve. “Is that…?”

Shuri grinned. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, it is.”