You say that, but have you ever tried? ใ she starts responding to his comment at the same time as he makes his suggestion.
a ringing starts in her ear, and she might have wondered if she got knocked on the head—again—but for the cold that grips her by the chest, its fingers digging around her sternum and in between her ribs.
as if from far away, she hears herself say, ใ Um…sure.
ใ it's just a school gym. where they played volleyball and basketball, and did their physical fitness tests, and joked around on the bleachers. gwen has not seen it since prom. (the damage was so extensive, even after the police tape was removed, the gym remained closed. she heard from glory months later they had completed the repairs. she never saw them.)
her feet move without conscious command, following a familiar route. alarm bells ring in her head. she wonders why she isn't reacting until realizing…this is not her spider-sense. this warning comes from elsewhere in her brain, and it gets louder as she takes the stairs down. she can picture the gym's double doors perfectly; she never reaches them.
gwen stops at the start of a line of lockers. hunched into herself, the fall of her blonde hair obscuring her eyes, she motions to the break between the lockers. ใ
Gym's over there. ใ almost idly, she notes her voice is shaking. (she does not realize her entire body is shaking.) ใ
๏ผ his focus is not on the simulation as they walk. instead, it is on her. the way she walks like she's trying to be soundless to someone with far sharper senses than him. the hunch of her shoulders, as she tries to draw in on herself.
the tremble that seizes her body.
he comes to a stop beside her. his expression is set, there is a slight flex of a muscle in his jaw. and then, with the earpiece, he opens up the simulation room admin console. gwen had not set the permissions to private, so overriding it is easy, and then they are no longer in this place that does to her what going back to the uchiha compound in taeum had felt like for him.
the simulation shifts. they are now standing on a dock, beside a large lake. it is a perfect, cloudless day. warm, with a gentle breeze, and itachi touches her shoulder. ๏ผ
I cannot imagine a school gymnasium holds much interest for me after all.
ใ the weight of his hand is light, the touch more assurance of his presence. she notes it all distantly, become an observer outside her own body.
when she blinks, back to herself, gwen finds she is seated on the dock, her legs crossed. she holds her phone on her lap. mary jane belts, "gotta wrap your head around it, it was bad, but you made it, made it feel so good—" without looking at the screen, gwen knows it is halfway through paperdoll. that's a minute she has no memory of.
her finger finds the volume button and takes it down until the song is a buzz against her palm. she raises her head. despite the clarity of the simulated day, her pupils threaten to consume her irises. around her neck, the symbiote extends protectively away from her, drifting on the sweet breeze. gwen finds itachi, and drops her head again. ใ
instead, he sits down beside her, gently nudging his shoulder into hers. he knows exactly when his own predilection towards physical touch was broken with her, and he was... surprised, to realize he had missed such casual contact with those he cares for. ๏ผ
ใ the big picture stuff, anyway. her thumb taps the screen, pausing the music. her eyes trace from her lap across the wood to the water. she listens as it laps gently at the pilings.
when she speaks, her voice is strangely detached. like she is repeating a story once told to her. ใ
It was prom night. Big party for the graduating seniors. Everybody was in the gym. ใ like fish in a barrel, she thinks, and hates herself for it. ใ One of our classmates injected himself with a serum. Turned himself into a monstrous, humanoid lizard. Attacked the prom.
I fought him. He begged— ใ here, her voice breaks. breathing feels like rubbing her lungs against a knife slipped between her ribs, but she continues, ใ He begged me to stop. But I was so angry. These were my friends. My classmates. This was my prom.
ใ one night. that was what she had wanted. one night without the craziness. without masks. one night kicking back with her friends. ใ
He died. Before he died, he shifted back, and…there was Peter.
ใ peter, her best friend. peter, whose death launched a manhunt for spider-woman. peter, whom she sees in dreams and hallucinations alike. no matter how often she tells herself to let go… ใ
๏ผ whether he put it together or not is irrelevant. he listens — still and silent as a statue beside her. he does not look at her, giving her that slight vestige of privacy as he gazes out across the placid lake.
(what she does not know, what he will not tell her, is that this is a replica of nakano lake, at the edges of the uchiha compound. the simulation does not extend beyond the gentle hill that rises to the footpath at the edge of their clan territory.) ๏ผ
I'm sorry. That is an awful circumstance under which to lose a friend.
๏ผ but it also wasn't her fault. however — he is cautious about saying that now. gwen is... insistent about her responsibilities. ๏ผ
ใ awful, and traumatizing, and not her fault, she knows. what peter did, he did alone. he synthesized the serum. he went to school. he pushed the plunger. he did not—or maybe, could not—discriminate; when she engaged him, he had cornered harry between the lockers.
yet—
that night, she saw the boy she loved at the very end: half his face covered in green scales, looking at her with one eye reptilian yellow, one human brown. her memories are chaos. parts of the night are vague, blurred, confusedโothers clear as a photograph. his confession that he only wanted to be like her, like spider-womanโฆthat plays in her head in 4k resolution. the sound of his voice, his sigh, his hand reaching for her maskโ
she covers her face with her hands. black filaments drape from her fingers. ใ
I'm so tired of feeling this way, ใ she admits. ใ I'd love one day, just one day, where a reminder doesn't wreck my entire existence.
๏ผ very slowly, with hesitance borne more of unfamiliarity than uncertainty, he lifts an arm and puts it gently around her shoulders. the contact he makes is nominal, and he does not rest the weight of his arm upon her. ๏ผ
I have a technique, unique to me in my world, that permits me to control one's perceptions so absolutely I can make you believe such an event never occurred, or that you have had years to come to terms with it, or that the outcome of the night was different.
๏ผ tsukuyomi is, in this fashion, innately horrifying.
wry: ๏ผ
It is something I do not announce freely, for what I assume you would understand as obvious reasons.
ใ oh. oh, of course. her friend has a terrifying power to alter one's whole person. why not.
she makes a little moue. ใ Just a bit, yeah.
ใ looking away again, gwen is quiet a long moment. her fingers drum against her thigh. ใ
I don't want to forget. Contradictions ahoy, considering I typically avoid reminders like the plague.
ใ there are moments she would love to reach into her own head, and pick out all the ruined sections of her brain. they are passing whims, however. thoughts she would never act upon. to do so…
she killed him in life. she cannot kill him in memory too. ใ
Peter was the person I loved most in the world. And he scared me…like nothing ever has. So much of what happened since, what I am, it all traces back to that night.
That does not mean I could not give you a day when you are older. When it hurts less.
( he could shape a future for her at fifty, when the sharp edge of grief is less likely to tighten in a snarl of thorns around your throat and cut off all oxygen. )
๏ผ it is remarkable, how little strain it puts on his body now to activate tsukuyomi. he does not use the sharingan around her now, so his eyes flicker to red, and then the blades of the mangekyล sharpen to their fine points.
he reaches out and tips her chin so she faces him more fully, and meets her eyes.
the simulation falls away around them, and they're standing in one of the temple sanctuaries of the guardian monks. the great hall is silent save the warm crackle of ever-burning fire, and itachi is standing off to one side in the shadows of a giant buddha statue, dressed in kimono with the uchiha crest emblazoned on its chest panels and back. he looks older as well — streaks of grey at his temples to accentuate the deepening lines on his face. it will be easier for her subconscious to process her own age being more advanced if he appears so as well.
gently, he fills in her mind's perception of history. the details are fuzzy — ultimately, they do not matter and he does it only as a kindness. there is a sense of having succeeded at the ximilia's mission, but no details. only the vindication of having hoped for something better at the end of it.
what he gives her, then, is an amorphous sense of peace. something gentle and soft and absolute. a day without the insistent, pressing pain of a broken heart, but the slow and steady warmth of an ache long laid to rest. she does not wish to change who she is, nor to remove peter from her mind, but he makes the memories softer. farther away. something she can reach for if she chooses to, but they do not clamour at the edges of her conscious mind.
finally — ๏ผ
This is Konoha's largest Fire Temple. The great fire at its heart has burned now for nearly three hundred years.
ใ there is a tilt. like something pinching her around her belly. then she can hardly remember it at all.
venom not only heals, but also helps stave off proof of time. gwen's face is older, no longer twenty-one; ageless, otherwise. her hair has gone fully platinum. it falls against her shoulders in a long, even bob. she runs her fingers through the ends. her hands are gloved—not gloved. her entire body is encased in a black bodysuit, a lilac, partially see-through trench coat over it. the suit continues down her legs, her calves patterned in spider-webs, and wraps around her feet in elevated high-tops, the soles the same color as her coat. all of her clothing lacks buttons, zippers, clasps.
she is aware of itachi's presence, but her attention is on the building. the walls and roof, the carvings, the burning brazier in the middle.
as she steps closer to the fire, her clothing seems to melt. the coat lengthens and wraps around her fully. the color lightens. a cherry blossom tree blooms across her back, the weight of the flowers draping along the sleeve of her kimono. ใ
I was feeling a little underdressed. ใ her voice is subtly different. deeper, more mature. ใ Is this okay?
ใ it is another little piece of what makes itachi. a little more light. though it's less what he says of himself, than his mention of children that pulls a question to her mind.
gwen glances down at herself as if there might be a clue left. nothing, of course. the kimono covers the shape of her body. even without it, how would she know? ใ
Did I ever tell you I have kids? Future kids. Potentially, anyway. Universe-hopping gets weird. ใ an understatement to join his.
weird as that entire visit was… gwen's expression softens with the memory. ใ
Girl and a boy. Charlotte was fourteen. Wanted to be a detective like her grandpa. Max was ten. He… ใ she wrinkles her nose. ใ Well, he really likes to eat. And both of them spider-themed heroes.
ใ she holds up her hand, and wiggles her fingers. ใ
Turns out spider-powers are inheritable. Can you imagine looking after babies who will crawl out of their cribs and right up walls?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
a ringing starts in her ear, and she might have wondered if she got knocked on the head—again—but for the cold that grips her by the chest, its fingers digging around her sternum and in between her ribs.
as if from far away, she hears herself say, ใ Um…sure.
ใ it's just a school gym. where they played volleyball and basketball, and did their physical fitness tests, and joked around on the bleachers. gwen has not seen it since prom. (the damage was so extensive, even after the police tape was removed, the gym remained closed. she heard from glory months later they had completed the repairs. she never saw them.)
her feet move without conscious command, following a familiar route. alarm bells ring in her head. she wonders why she isn't reacting until realizing…this is not her spider-sense. this warning comes from elsewhere in her brain, and it gets louder as she takes the stairs down. she can picture the gym's double doors perfectly; she never reaches them.
gwen stops at the start of a line of lockers. hunched into herself, the fall of her blonde hair obscuring her eyes, she motions to the break between the lockers. ใ
Gym's over there. ใ almost idly, she notes her voice is shaking. (she does not realize her entire body is shaking.) ใ
no subject
the tremble that seizes her body.
he comes to a stop beside her. his expression is set, there is a slight flex of a muscle in his jaw. and then, with the earpiece, he opens up the simulation room admin console. gwen had not set the permissions to private, so overriding it is easy, and then they are no longer in this place that does to her what going back to the uchiha compound in taeum had felt like for him.
the simulation shifts. they are now standing on a dock, beside a large lake. it is a perfect, cloudless day. warm, with a gentle breeze, and itachi touches her shoulder. ๏ผ
I cannot imagine a school gymnasium holds much interest for me after all.
no subject
when she blinks, back to herself, gwen finds she is seated on the dock, her legs crossed. she holds her phone on her lap. mary jane belts, "gotta wrap your head around it, it was bad, but you made it, made it feel so good—" without looking at the screen, gwen knows it is halfway through paperdoll. that's a minute she has no memory of.
her finger finds the volume button and takes it down until the song is a buzz against her palm. she raises her head. despite the clarity of the simulated day, her pupils threaten to consume her irises. around her neck, the symbiote extends protectively away from her, drifting on the sweet breeze. gwen finds itachi, and drops her head again. ใ
Sorry.
no subject
๏ผ he recognizes those symptoms, after all.
it is so much like sasuke.
instead, he sits down beside her, gently nudging his shoulder into hers. he knows exactly when his own predilection towards physical touch was broken with her, and he was... surprised, to realize he had missed such casual contact with those he cares for. ๏ผ
Do you wish to speak on it?
no subject
ใ the big picture stuff, anyway. her thumb taps the screen, pausing the music. her eyes trace from her lap across the wood to the water. she listens as it laps gently at the pilings.
when she speaks, her voice is strangely detached. like she is repeating a story once told to her. ใ
It was prom night. Big party for the graduating seniors. Everybody was in the gym. ใ like fish in a barrel, she thinks, and hates herself for it. ใ One of our classmates injected himself with a serum. Turned himself into a monstrous, humanoid lizard. Attacked the prom.
I fought him. He begged— ใ here, her voice breaks. breathing feels like rubbing her lungs against a knife slipped between her ribs, but she continues, ใ He begged me to stop. But I was so angry. These were my friends. My classmates. This was my prom.
ใ one night. that was what she had wanted. one night without the craziness. without masks. one night kicking back with her friends. ใ
He died. Before he died, he shifted back, and…there was Peter.
ใ peter, her best friend. peter, whose death launched a manhunt for spider-woman. peter, whom she sees in dreams and hallucinations alike. no matter how often she tells herself to let go… ใ
no subject
(what she does not know, what he will not tell her, is that this is a replica of nakano lake, at the edges of the uchiha compound. the simulation does not extend beyond the gentle hill that rises to the footpath at the edge of their clan territory.) ๏ผ
I'm sorry. That is an awful circumstance under which to lose a friend.
๏ผ but it also wasn't her fault. however — he is cautious about saying that now. gwen is... insistent about her responsibilities. ๏ผ
no subject
ใ awful, and traumatizing, and not her fault, she knows. what peter did, he did alone. he synthesized the serum. he went to school. he pushed the plunger. he did not—or maybe, could not—discriminate; when she engaged him, he had cornered harry between the lockers.
yet—
that night, she saw the boy she loved at the very end: half his face covered in green scales, looking at her with one eye reptilian yellow, one human brown. her memories are chaos. parts of the night are vague, blurred, confusedโothers clear as a photograph. his confession that he only wanted to be like her, like spider-womanโฆthat plays in her head in 4k resolution. the sound of his voice, his sigh, his hand reaching for her maskโ
she covers her face with her hands. black filaments drape from her fingers. ใ
I'm so tired of feeling this way, ใ she admits. ใ I'd love one day, just one day, where a reminder doesn't wreck my entire existence.
no subject
I could do that for you. If you wish.
no subject
How?
no subject
๏ผ tsukuyomi is, in this fashion, innately horrifying.
wry: ๏ผ
It is something I do not announce freely, for what I assume you would understand as obvious reasons.
no subject
she makes a little moue. ใ Just a bit, yeah.
ใ looking away again, gwen is quiet a long moment. her fingers drum against her thigh. ใ
I don't want to forget. Contradictions ahoy, considering I typically avoid reminders like the plague.
ใ there are moments she would love to reach into her own head, and pick out all the ruined sections of her brain. they are passing whims, however. thoughts she would never act upon. to do so…
she killed him in life. she cannot kill him in memory too. ใ
Peter was the person I loved most in the world. And he scared me…like nothing ever has. So much of what happened since, what I am, it all traces back to that night.
ใ gwen smiles wanly at itachi. ใ
To erase Peter, you'd erase me too.
no subject
( he could shape a future for her at fifty, when the sharp edge of grief is less likely to tighten in a snarl of thorns around your throat and cut off all oxygen. )
no subject
her stomach is flipping like she is in free-fall. her heart squeezes tight. ใ
What do I have to do?
no subject
( it feels... strange, to use it for this purpose. but he had given blue months in paradise, and this is small by comparison. )
no subject
Okay. I trust you.
no subject
he reaches out and tips her chin so she faces him more fully, and meets her eyes.
the simulation falls away around them, and they're standing in one of the temple sanctuaries of the guardian monks. the great hall is silent save the warm crackle of ever-burning fire, and itachi is standing off to one side in the shadows of a giant buddha statue, dressed in kimono with the uchiha crest emblazoned on its chest panels and back. he looks older as well — streaks of grey at his temples to accentuate the deepening lines on his face. it will be easier for her subconscious to process her own age being more advanced if he appears so as well.
gently, he fills in her mind's perception of history. the details are fuzzy — ultimately, they do not matter and he does it only as a kindness. there is a sense of having succeeded at the ximilia's mission, but no details. only the vindication of having hoped for something better at the end of it.
what he gives her, then, is an amorphous sense of peace. something gentle and soft and absolute. a day without the insistent, pressing pain of a broken heart, but the slow and steady warmth of an ache long laid to rest. she does not wish to change who she is, nor to remove peter from her mind, but he makes the memories softer. farther away. something she can reach for if she chooses to, but they do not clamour at the edges of her conscious mind.
finally — ๏ผ
This is Konoha's largest Fire Temple. The great fire at its heart has burned now for nearly three hundred years.
no subject
venom not only heals, but also helps stave off proof of time. gwen's face is older, no longer twenty-one; ageless, otherwise. her hair has gone fully platinum. it falls against her shoulders in a long, even bob. she runs her fingers through the ends. her hands are gloved—not gloved. her entire body is encased in a black bodysuit, a lilac, partially see-through trench coat over it. the suit continues down her legs, her calves patterned in spider-webs, and wraps around her feet in elevated high-tops, the soles the same color as her coat. all of her clothing lacks buttons, zippers, clasps.
she is aware of itachi's presence, but her attention is on the building. the walls and roof, the carvings, the burning brazier in the middle.
as she steps closer to the fire, her clothing seems to melt. the coat lengthens and wraps around her fully. the color lightens. a cherry blossom tree blooms across her back, the weight of the flowers draping along the sleeve of her kimono. ใ
I was feeling a little underdressed. ใ her voice is subtly different. deeper, more mature. ใ Is this okay?
no subject
It suits you.
no subject
ใ she could bring up the teeny-tiny smile, too, but. maybe later. ๐
her eyes return to the fire. its light flickers across her cheeks. ใ
Is someone tasked with keeping it burning or is this a "has been burning longer than it should" type of miracle?
no subject
( he does not believe in miracles, as it happens. )
no subject
ใ the fire is older than the united states. ใ
Did you used to come here often?
no subject
( he looks up at the statue looming over him, and then shakes his head faintly. )
The guardians are formidable shinobi. They protect the Daimyo in times of war, when the bulk of shinobi forces are otherwise engaged.
no subject
Is that something you ever wanted to be?
ใ uchiha itachi, guardian monk. catchy. she'd watch that show. ใ
no subject
๏ผ she knows more than most, where his history is concerned. the rest is his alone, and he has no plans of sharing it. ๏ผ
no subject
gwen glances down at herself as if there might be a clue left. nothing, of course. the kimono covers the shape of her body. even without it, how would she know? ใ
Did I ever tell you I have kids? Future kids. Potentially, anyway. Universe-hopping gets weird. ใ an understatement to join his.
weird as that entire visit was… gwen's expression softens with the memory. ใ
Girl and a boy. Charlotte was fourteen. Wanted to be a detective like her grandpa. Max was ten. He… ใ she wrinkles her nose. ใ Well, he really likes to eat. And both of them spider-themed heroes.
ใ she holds up her hand, and wiggles her fingers. ใ
Turns out spider-powers are inheritable. Can you imagine looking after babies who will crawl out of their cribs and right up walls?
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