interlude: set me free

harry shook himself awake once again. for some odd reason, he found himself constantly touching the necklace he was wearing—a necklace given to him by his mother. and while it was resized while he was growing up, he didn’t feel as big of an attachment then than he did now. my precious, said the voice in his head. whoa there, not the time to go lord of the rings, harry, he said to himself. “please tell me i’m not the only one hearing shit.”

he sat himself facing the horizon, his fingers absentmindedly holding on to his necklace. harry never realised it but that thing was grounding him and calming him down, much more than anything else he held. he heard movement from behind him and he stood up immediately, facing the other person. she’s out to get your necklace, harry, said the voice in his head. “who are you?,” he asked as he held on to his necklace.

harry narrowed his eyes at her in confusion, his head tilted to one side as he tried to figure out what’s happening. he probably shouldn’t be surprised about anything anymore, but the woman talked like she was part of the big sleep or something. “have you been hanging out with peter or something?” because that was the only explanation he could come up with. “you sound like those ladies from the old films.”

jean had to admit that she was getting increasingly frustrated with this place, and the whispers of the – don’t think of it – the entity at the back of her mind were getting stronger. restless. 

she could feel a bubbling pit of rage simmering below the surface, which, in all honesty, terrified her. she couldn’t tell if it was her, or the phoenix, or if indeed there was any difference between them any more. and yet, at the same time, she wanted to just … give in. 

maybe it was the ‘i told you so’ that made her temper simmer over, but before she realised what she was doing, she’d raised the entire pile of stones and flung them at the glowing wall.

unfortunately, exactly like harry had told her, the stones simply ricocheted off, hurtling in all directions, and jean came back to herself just in time to realise that she’d just done something incredibly stupid. “oh god,” she said, whipping around to look at harry. “are you alright? i don’t know – i just lost it, i think… did any of the stones hit you?”

he’s heard about the mutants. not as much as he should, but he’s heard about them. all he knew was that they had an institute in north salem back in new york and apparently have a country as well. he’s not exactly sure where jean grey falls in that spectrum—he’s not sure about the whole business with mutants really considering how secretive they were.

harry dusted off the debris from his suit jacket, both from his attempt to throw a rock at the wall and the other stones that were floating and flew straight to the walls which was apparently the work of the woman. “just stone dust but nothing major,” he said before he smiled at jean after he deemed his jacket sleeve clean. “so is that a thing you usually do? and with the whole—” he gestured to his eyes, “—eyes thing?”

did yelena know where they were really going? no. she was just as new here – but she had a convincing nature to her. embedded in her training of deception to never give anyone a reason to doubt her. listening to what he believed he needed, she gave a short nod. “maybe you need to find tony stark.” she pointed out before heading toward a building. “you need military building, they look like other building if you don’t know what to look for.” that much was the truth – while they could possibly find a radio somewhere else, it’d be something akin to a needle in a haystack. “my name is yelena belova, i am black widow.”

“black widow? like the killer spider?” and considering the woman had an alias, it meant that she was either: a) an enhanced being, or b) a spy. if his pop culture knowledge was anything to go by (care of peter “let me show why star wars is legendary” parker), anyone with an alias was any of those two...but she had weapons so he was inclined to believe that the woman was the latter. “yeah well, in case you weren’t informed, but tony stark’s dead. anyway, any radios would do. two-way would be good but if we can’t have that, a normal radio’s fine. it’s bound to pick up frequencies as long as i make it happen.”

michelle honestly wasn’t surprised to hear that. peter always had to go somewhere. in washington he had to go somewhere and even now when they’re in who knows what, he still had to go somewhere. michelle was already certain she knew what was going on. with him at least. that was the only puzzle she could figure out. “yikes, don’t think it’d be fun to be trapped somewhere we can’t even leave with flash here. you just know he’d go insane from having no signal.” she rolled her eyes. “they seemed fine, as much as you can be i guess.” she stopped at that. michelle wasn’t even sure how to describe how she was doing. physically there was obviously no damage but otherwise? she’d rather not get into.

harry let out a loud laugh despite the situation they were in. just imagining flash thompson stuck with them was already making him laugh. in his not-so-humble opinion, jerkface flash was trying so hard to be him. “oh yeah, definitely. flash wouldn’t survive in the forest, let alone this place.” harry shrugged, a small, rare smile on his face. he might be a spoiled, trust fund baby, but harry at least argued that he was better than flash in adapting to new areas. “well that’s good, at least. and you? you still haven’t answered my question, you know? are you okay?”

Hunting high and low to seek revenge Brand new moral code, got made reluctant renegade Leaving empty souls when he avenged Evil spirits flowed he drank the blood like lemonade

“so we’re basically trapped in some kind of… spirit town thing or whatever that brought us here for I don’t know what for however long.” she stated out loud. sure she didn’t know how long they’d actually been there but it’d been long enough. each day wasn’t making it easier to be there. it was just a constant reminder that she needed to get out. “have you seen anyone else here yet? I’ve ran into cindy and mary jane but i haven’t seen parker yet.”

technically they weren’t trapped in a spirit town thing but harry didn’t know what else to describe it either. and he wasn’t willing to try and possibly make a hole in the glowing, invisible wall—not without exposing his pumpkin bombs and subsequently exposing himself as one of new york city’s finest troublemakers. “yeah, pete’s...somewhere here. i met him earlier then he had to go somewhere.” but he was a little surprised to find out that cindy and mary jane were apparently just as trapped as they were. “cindy and mary jane—? great. bring in ned and jerkface flash and it’s the complete team. were they okay though? are you fine?”

“the people who taught me, did not teach me to negotiate with words.” she returned simply – which, well, wasn’t entirely true. she may have been a trained killer, but she was also a spy and in the event that she was undercover, she knew how to play the part – any part. right now, it didn’t seem entirely necessary. her head tilted as he spoke – she wasn’t a scientist, but she knew enough to follow along. “come with me.” her arms fell to her sides, turning her attention towards the buildings in the distance. “tell me what you need and we will search for it, there may be something in one of the structures you can use.”

he was a little confused where they were going considering he’s been scouting the area as much as he could. apparently she knew the area better than he did—which was a little concerning because then that would mean that the woman was here long before he got here. well he might as well follow the woman. “a two-way radio would be nice. i can figure out if they work and if they do, i can try and figure out how to contact the outside world. although i don’t have as big of a brain as tony stark, i can sure as hell try.” he followed her, still wary of the woman in front of him. “who are you anyway?”

stephen sighed, admittedly a bit irritably at the notion that now it seemed everyone assumed he knew everything. when in fact, he did not. “harry,“ he greeted back, a small smile on his otherwise very tired face. “i have a running theory but i don’t wish to state it entirely without having some proof of being correct; still, you’re a man of science, what do you think of us being trapped within a pocket universe?”

great, so they really were in a pocket universe. god, he hated alternate realities and parallel universes—they always seem too good to be true and it pisses him off that the harry osborns in the alternate realities and parallel universes seemed to have a better time than he did. “well i can’t know for sure but either someone’s tinkering with the time-space continuum and trapped us here—wherever here is—or there’s a tear in our current reality and sucked us in here. but that would mean we’re dealing with something that’s defying the laws of physics and the universe.” astronomy is not my greatest subject, he thought then. still, it was better to have to talk to stephen strange about it—even with the cape still on the man.

tony laughed a bit at the kid’s frank and quick disclosure about his dad. “you know what? i used to say that a lot too. maybe different words, usually more like ‘i’m nothing like him’, but i know that feeling well. long shadows of shitty parents, am i right?” he shook his head. 

“so… tell me a bit about yourself, kid. what do you like? what do you want to achieve?”

he figured that if he kept the kid talking and focused on the situation at hand, there was a chance that he could keep him from thinking about how they were all trapped and probably never going home.

“know anything about making stuff?”

sometimes he had to wonder why he didn’t take psychology instead. he had a lot of issues to uncover and his history with his dad isn’t the greatest. then again, he could ask the same thing to tony stark. “yeah, frequent recipients of broken promises.” if his father saw him now, harry was sure his dad would pop a vein at freely interacting with tony stark.

“what? oh, uh i like biochemistry. not just because i’m an osborn or anything, i’m genuinely interested in biochemistry.” god, what did he want to achieve? “justice is all i want to achieve, to be honest. it’s been very elusive lately.” then he perked up at the prospect of making stuff because hell yes, he knew about making stuff. “sure, i’ve dabbled into engineering. probably not as good as stark industries—but i think i can manage.”

“whoa, whoa, whoa. what’s with the attitude?” not that harry could actually blame mj for reacting the way that she did, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t caught off-guard. maybe this whole situation was finally getting to mj? “hey, you okay?” harry peered at her, concerned that maybe she wasn’t as okay as he initially thought. “it’s just me, mj.”

harry rarely ever lost his temper and if he did, it was usually in the presence of no one. he was trained to have longer patience than most considering his social status and anything he did would definitely get back to his father. but this whole situation was slowly eating away at his patience. and do redheads really have this much fire?, he thought to himself as the woman in front of him reminded him of one of his closest friends. “okay fine, at least we tried,” he said as he looked at the pile of stones that was originally a big rock he threw at the glowing wall.

“that makes one of us.” harry was still a little confused as to why she’s talking to him considering he didn’t know who she was, but he figured it was better than nothing. at least he wasn’t alone in this place. “what do you do here exactly? all i see are abandoned buildings and some sort of ship. as interesting as it is to find out what kind of non-earthly plants those are—” he said as he pointed to the flora, “we don’t have the tools for it.”