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It wasn’t hard for Jean to leave the island and vanish into the crowd. Disappearing never was - nobody cared to see her except the people hunting her down. She knew she couldn’t remain in the city after the chaos she’d caused, but she had to stay long enough to make sure that Peter was okay. Even as she hid in an alleyway, she could feel him clinging to life in a hospital bed so far away. She could almost feel phantoms of the pain that wracked his body, the pain from the bullet he took for her without hesitation, but kept pushing no matter what. He was gonna be okay. She couldn’t lose him too, not after she’d just found him. Not after she finally lost Sara for good.
She crouched in the shadows for hours, concentrating as hard as she could, until finally she felt him stabilize, and let out a breath she felt like she’d held for hours. Letting go at last, she slumped over, feeling the tension that gripped her finally go slack, more emotional than physical. Her capture, the truth, Peter, and her escape all blended together into a violent blur that left her shellshocked. But it was over. Her search was finished.
She hadn’t really found Sara, but she’d found enough.
The police were probably looking for her, alongside god knows how many panicked government agencies, so she’d have to keep an extra low profile until she got out of the city. She was no stranger to that. At this point, it almost felt easier than finally being seen.
She made her way over to Central Park, still trembling, her heart a drumbeat in her ears. It was the late afternoon, and the waning amber light made the world beyond the shadow her hood cast glow like a fairy tale. Her rage had abated after meeting Peter’s aunt, but her grief somehow hadn’t hit yet. It hung over her like the sword of Damocles. She knew she would spend the night weeping bitterly, but now? She felt numb.
She shakes her head, reminding herself to focus. It wasn’t over until she escaped the city. She needed a bus ticket out of here, and she had no phone, and no money - nothing but the clothes on her back. However, her powers made her an excellent thief, and there was no shortage of marks in New York. It takes her all of two seconds to pick her target - a young man in a suit sitting alone on a bench nearby. Perfect.
She slips into his mind, ignoring the flashes of his memories as she extracts the necessary information. The man - Henry Stanton - had a well paying job in the city, which meant he had a wallet stuffed with cash. There was a phone at full charge in his right pocket, and he wore a ring that would probably fetch a good price. She’d picked well - this guy had plenty to give. She rifles through his wallet with his fingers as she approaches him, takes the money from his hand and the ring from his finger, and sits down three benches over. She has him start looking up bus tickets for her - better buy them here than in person. Too many cameras in Port Authority.
“Henry!” comes a voice to his side. “Thank god!”
Jean turns Henry’s head and recognizes the woman in a flash of the stranger’s memories. A hike at the foot of the Catskills, a hug at a graduation, a half-remembered smile from early childhood. His sister. Caroline, Henry’s dormant mind supplies.
Before Jean can react, Caroline is next to him, hugging him fiercely. “Thank god you’re safe. I came as soon as I could. Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” Jean says with Henry’s lips as she tucks his phone into his jacket pocket. “I’m fine.” There’s a flash of another memory, of standing paralyzed in an office alongside his colleagues, desperately fighting the power holding him in place. Caroline had tried to call him again and again until it was over and he could pick up the phone. After he’d told her he was okay, she’d begged him to meet her. He’d agreed, unable to hide how shaken he was. Jean almost feels through his memory the tightness in his chest and the shaking that refused to leave his limbs.
“I know you said it over the phone, but I couldn’t… I needed to see you. I had to make sure.”
“It’s okay,” Jean said. “I’m okay. Everything’s alright.” She hugs Caroline back, wrapping Henry’s arms around her and clasping his hands together like she did with Sara. “What do you know about… it?”
“The news doesn’t make sense. It started in some kind of government lab, and Spider-Man was there - he got shot, but not by… whatever did this.”
“He’ll be okay. He’s one of the strongest people I’ve - we’ve ever known.”
“I hope so. God knows where we’d be without him.”
Jean doesn’t want to know where she’d be right now if it wasn’t for Peter.
“...We’d be in some real deep shit,” she says, and Caroline chuckles through the tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
“Christ, Henry, I - when I saw what was happening, when you didn’t pick up, I - I’ve never felt so scared before. I just kept replaying our last phone call in my mind, again and again, how I just… hung up on you so easily. How could I do that?”
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know that it could have been - “ she chokes, Henry’s throat tight with her tears. “You didn’t know it could have been the last. You couldn’t know. It was all so sudden.” She turns away from her and looks out at the grass, remembering another park much like this one. Another bench, another sister.
“You know how much you matter to me, right?” Caroline asks. “I haven’t been a perfect sister. I know I’ve made plenty of mistakes. But I love you, Henry, and I’d - “ she cuts herself off, blinking her tears away before she continues. “When Dad’s Parkinson's got worse, I was so angry that you looked scared to be near him. I thought you wanted to leave him and ignore it all.”
Jean pokes into Henry’s captive mind and sees flashes of a man losing control of his body. Remembers the fear that shot through Henry’s soul whenever he shivered in the winter or bounced his leg at the table. How it felt to be frozen in the office, a prisoner in his body just like his dad on his hospital bed.
She remembers taunting Peter through a man with a scraggly beard, and remembers the car that rammed into his legs. Remembers the familiar pain in his eyes when he told her what she was doing was unforgivable.
“But deep down I knew you were scared. And I was… I was so scared too. And I know he never stopped mattering to you.”
Caroline holds Henry’s hand tight, with both of her hands. She’s wearing rings like Sara used to wear, and the warm press of metal against Henry’s fingers feels achingly familiar. It’s only when the tears start flowing down his cheeks and her own that she remembers what Sara’s hand felt like in hers, and finally feels the weight of her grief. Henry’s body lets out a sob, and she presses this stranger’s forehead against the hands of the sister who isn’t hers.
Caroline bends down too, and her tears are hot against Henry’s neck. “I don’t know how to do this without you,” she says, her voice choking up.
“I don’t know either,” Jean gasps through her tears. “But I always loved you. And I knew…” she pulls back, sniffing. “I knew you loved me too. We’d always been together. And I thought that could never change, no matter what. When it happened, I… I felt so scared and so alone. Even though I wasn’t.” Jean wipes her tears off Henry’s cheeks and breathes shakily. “...I really miss my big sister,” she says, and Henry’s voice is as quiet as it is broken.
They hug again, and Jean closes her eyes as she leans against her. Caroline’s hair is black, but it feels a lot like how Sara’s felt against her. For a moment, she can pretend that it was all a long, lonely nightmare. But Caroline is Henry’s sister. And Sara is dead.
She remembers how close she was to killing Henry in her rage. How she would have murdered him alongside thousands of other innocents if Peter hadn’t stopped her. And she grips her harder, wishing for the first time that she could take it back. “I’m so sorry.”
“You were scared, Henry. You didn’t try to hide that week to hurt me or Dad - you did it because you felt alone and scared. It doesn’t make everything okay, but it doesn’t mean we ever loved you less. Dad loved you deeply, right to the end.” She pulls away and puts her hands on his shoulders. “I’m sure of it.”
Jean can’t stop her tears, both from Henry’s eyes and her own. She puts his hands on Caroline’s shakily, apologizing again and again to them both. To them all.
“You aren’t wearing Dad’s ring?”
“I - it’s at home.”
“Just making sure. I don’t remember the last time I saw you without it.” She stood up, wiping her eyes. “I’m gonna go grab us some food. Just stay here, okay? We’ll figure out how to keep in touch better over some coffee.”
Caroline sets off, and Jean watches her leave until she’s out of sight. Then she sits next to Henry, and the two look out over the park and the city beyond. For a brief moment, she finds herself determined to release Henry, tell him what she did, and apologize, but that would just make everything worse. Instead, she reaches out with shaking hands and slides his ring back on his finger. She still feels like she should say something, even though it’s just her looking up at her through his eyes, just her listening behind his ears.
“I’m sorry, Henry.”
She walks away, and sees him come back to himself with a jolt in the corner of her eye.
On the bus, she thinks of Peter, and hopes that beneath her powers, her rage, and her grief, there’s still enough of her to love.