Look, my parents were mad scientists who pumped me full of spider-juice just to see what would happen. I went to Hail Hydra high school and Nick Fury university. I've been extraordinary my entire life. After all these years of insanity... a little ordinary sounds pretty #$%^ great. You have your normal... and I have mine.
The consequences of Pleasant Hill hadn’t fully sank in for Sharon yet, but thankfully she had a feeling Hill was going to get most of the repercussions. If it came down to it, she’d go back to Madripoor. Of course she felt a little bad about her involvement, but her moral compass was jaded after being on the run. She owed several apologies. But for now, she was tired. Resting a sprained shoulder and busted lip, she leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath at the sound of the voice. “If you’re looking for answers, I’m not sure I have much to offer.”
An hour and a half after Zemo’s power trip, Jessica reverted from a spider back into her human form. She had to thank Clint for carrying her so she didn’t get crushed and make sure that Roger was also a human again before she set out to look for Hill. Instead, she found Sharon. “No, no. That’s not going to cut it. You turned an innocent man into a porcupine. And for what? Trying to do the right thing and look into why people went missing?”
“And the spandex, don’t forget about that.” Sharon replied,
lips quirked even if the smile didn’t reach her eyes. They told you not to kill
your heroes, that you’d need them someday– -yet they always did. When
everything was falling apart and it was hard to tell up from down, Sharon had
seen people mistake the ones doing good with the ones doing bad. ( She
supposed there was something confusing about it to the human eye when there
were people that were more than human,
good and bad became grey. ) “How’s the family?” By which she
mostly meant Gerry, but Roger too. Sharon hadn’t had any time to check in with
Jess since…well, she couldn’t remember—whenever the last end of the world had
been.
“Gotta love the spandex. Y’know, I made the decision to ditch the costume after a bad google binge. Thank god I reached that conclusion before I got pregnant. Baby weight is compromising enough when you’re not also dealing with latex and skin tight spandex.” Rest in peace to the original Spider-Woman costume, Jessica sighed internally. As the conversation shifted Jessica readjusted to go with it. “Gerry’s good. He’s walking and chatting some which is nice. He’s also climbing ceilings and shooting energy out of his fists but Roger has been taking it in stride. Speaking of Roger,” Jessica held up a hand to show the ring on her finger. “That happened.”
“I’m off-duty, currently. Any requests will have to wait till I’ve got my badge back on, and in the meantime we can talk about why you decided to pay me a home visit.”
“Because it’s been far too long. Gerry is at daycare, Carol is being Carol and I have wine. Can I come in?”
“A whole new brand of super-hero.” Sharon replied, her voice as good as a silent afterthought. “Though I think most people already see you guys as invincible. Something about the capes and the costumes, you think?” There’s a weighed humor to her voice, like she’s filling space while she can.
“They think we’re invincible and they throw stones at us thinking we can take it. Too bad most of us are flesh and blood and very breakable.” That was how it always been though. People pushed and pushed and hoped that heroes could withstand it. “But you’re right, it has to be the capes.”
“Did you get that off our brochures?” Sharon responded,
smirk cracking amused at the expense of the hell hole they called home. Yeah,
things were falling apart alright. At least her present company knew well enough how to
joke about it. “The new Baroness hasn’t done anything to clean up the mess?”
Sharon questioned, for once glad to be pondering on the state of doom ( not
to say the God Emperor’s name in vain ) of another domain. “That
can’t be good for the peace. Has anyone done anything about it?” Though the
question almost lay: what was there to do? The Baron or Baroness of a domain
were to run it as they pleased, those under them had to follow. ( Look
where that mentality was getting them. )
“They’re incredibly interesting if you ever give them a read. They’re my material of choice on the loo.” She was kidding, of course. The sarcasm should have been an indication of that, but Jessica knew that Sharon was sharp enough to pick it up regardless. “Julia. Julia is the new Baroness. She was one of us before Madame Webb got into her damn head. Now she’s useless.” Before she was the Baroness locked away Julia had been a friend, a teammate. She had been a kid when she joined the Resistance and she may have had the worst luck out of all of them, but it didn’t justify what was going on. “You know the Resistance. We’re always ‘doing something’ even when nothing is happening. It’s like how your war is ‘over’ or whatever they’re saying now.”
“Look around us–” Sharon replied, tone direct because the wreckage of the War Zone spoke for itself. “–Playing pretend at peace got us war and a decimated city.” She’d heard of the happenings on the island, but they’d been too caught up in their own shit to even try and help out. They hadn’t had time to leave one war for another. “Thought they were reporting things are stabilizing out there on Spider Island. There can’t be anymore people left for the Baroness to turn.”
“Trust me, I’ve seen the domain. I have to cross a decent amount of it every time I come in. It’s a wreck. Manhattan is functioning. New Attilan is posh. And then the other two domains in the area can apparently go fuck themselves.” She was bitter, sure. Jessica had reason to be. “Yeah, that’s what they like to say. Stabilizing. We got the Spider Queen out, which we thought would fix things. Turns out that our new Baroness likes to sit in her web and do nothing. There aren’t more people to turn, but the people who were in the middle of the transformation when the Spider Queen bit it are stuck.”
“Passive discussion isn’t going to fix this anymore than it did the first time around. We’re sitting around doing what– -waiting for war? On the cusp of marketed peace?”
“Marketed peace? I don’t know how you usually do things over here, but on the island no one is even pretending like peace is a thing we have. The humans turned into mutated spider creatures. Spider things. It’s a shit show and Baroness Webb hasn’t done shite for anyone but herself.”
“Good. Let’s get you a night off of supermom duty.” Sharon replied, the upturned set of her mouth straightening for a few bare breaths of a moment. “I heard.” She’d heard after a two month delay, because believe it or not– -communications tended to fry up some more out east when aliens invaded.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Jess. I should’ve been.” She would’ve shot that alien queen straight in the head for it too. “How are you now– -really?”
“That’s easier said than done, you know.” Being a mom was a full time job. Jessica had thought she knew what she was getting herself into, but she had been woefully unprepared. Motherhood was this complicated combobulation of never knowing what to expect and things going wrong even when you did. All that aside, she loved it. Wouldn’t change it for the world.
It was still uncomfortable to talk about. Jessica didn’t know how to broach that subject even though she knew that she had to. She had raged and now she was claiming that she was processing but not really following the proper steps. “It’s okay. Even the people who were here didn’t know. No one could have done anything, from what I’ve heard. I’m…” lips pursed together, head moving from side to side. Waking up every night in a cold sweat. Can’t pick up my baby sometimes because I’m so afraid of hurting him. Distancing myself from everyone because I don’t know what to do. “I’m fine. Processing.”
