FIVE.

WILL WOKE WITH the sky.

The sun burned red through the backs of her eyelids, waking her long before she wanted. She'd left her blinds open the night before, and the morning had emptied itself into her room through her window. She blinked through a haze of gold to find her walls lit by sun. She yawned, arching her back, before falling back against her bed. It was too late to fall back asleep now. Will leaned against her pillow and let her eyes wander up her walls instead.

She knew her decor was less than ordinary. It certainly wasn't Liz's collage of colorful band posters and glossy Polaroid pictures, but she loved it all the same.

Will's wall's were dizzying. She kept every map she touched, and then some. And every map went on her wall, held up by tape and thumb tacks and old pieces of museum putty that hardly stuck and left the corners fluttering. She had even started to run out of space on her walls, and maps had begun to spill over onto her ceiling. From a map of the English countryside from World War II her father had given her to the subway map she'd collected yesterday, Will had pieced together the world inside her room.

She watched the sun chase the jagged teeth of the edges of the pages up onto the ceiling, eyes tracing the winding threads of roads and rivers and mountains. It was a chaotic jumble of paper and ink, but nothing Will had ever done had been neat or tidy.

It probably should've felt claustrophobic to Will, to have so many places jostling for space on her walls, but it didn't. Maps were places she hadn't seen, opportunities she hadn't witnessed, lives she hadn't lived. Maps meant possibility to Will, and in a world where she craved change, nothing mattered more.

A sharp knock on the door drew her gaze away from her walls.

Saturday. Office hours.

She'd forgotten.

"Will, are you up?" her father asked, voice muffled through the wood grain.

Will stared straight ahead at at the curling edges of a yellowing map of South Africa and stayed silent. She didn't know why. Her throat felt dry and scratchy and the word Yes was trapped somewhere inside her.

"Will?" he repeated.

"Will."

"Will."

He opened the door. Adrian's eyes narrowed when he saw her awake, burrowed down beneath her comforter, and staring straight ahead.

"Will! Were you ignoring me?" he asked sternly, placing his hands on his hips.

"You're Dad Posing," she pointed out.

"I'm your dad, therefore I am allowed to Dad Pose. Why didn't you answer me?"

Will tried her best not to sound whiny. "Can't we just take one day off?"

"Sure, if you want us to go broke and all have to live in a house together and be dirty and eat porridge for every meal."

"Number one, we're a family—we already live in the same house. Number two, you're just plagiarizing the plot of Oliver Twist."

"Well, do you want to go to college? Because guess who pays for that."

Will turned over and muttered a curse word into her pillow.

"Excuse me?" her father exclaimed. "I hope you just said 'duck' or you're going to need to duck when I smack you with that pillow for insubordination."

Will lifted her head. "Nice Scrabble word. Where was that fire last week when I was kicking your ass?"

"Oh sorry, are you bragging about being good at Scrabble, the game of nerds?"

"Are you admitting I'm good at Scrabble, the game of intellectuals?

"You know, when I was fifteen I was too busy being cool to play Scrabble."

"Yeah, I'll bet you had tons of fun dancing the jitterbug and watching color TV for the first time."

"Don't be a little—"

"Hey! You can't be mean to me. Mom says I need to grow up in a stable home environment."

"She also says gluten is bad for you and you shouldn't give an eight year old nunchucks for their birthday."

"I loved those nunchucks."

"Liz didn't."

"Well, she should've defended herself with the mace you got her for her eight birthday."

Adrian's cracked a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling, before he forced his gaze to return to steely.

"Will. Up. Now. I won't have you make me late to the office."

He smacked the end of her bed.

She sat up and raised her hands defensively.

"I'm awake. I'm up. Happy?" she asked.

"Very," he nodded.

Adrian smiled. He turned to leave her room, smacking the top of the door frame with both hands on his way out. His footsteps faded down the hallway, and Will began to get ready to face another day.

•

The trip to the warehouse passed slowly. The subway was crowded today, but luckily its swarm of emotions had faded to a hum somewhere deep in the back of her skull as she and her father quietly played Ars magna.

Ars magna was a game of anagrams. The title itself was an anagram for the word anagram, Ars magna the Latin term for great art. It was a game he had made up when she was little to keep her mind moving, never in one place long enough to become ensnared by the emotions of another. It was simple but it kept her calm and her mind elsewhere.

Will sat in her seat on the subway, looking at her knees and nothing else. She was wearing a sweater under an old pair of overalls with poorly patched knees she had sewn on herself. She stared at the crooked seams and listening to her father's voice.

"Angel."

Will picked the word apart in her mind, stretching syllables and shaping letters until it formed something else entirely.

"Um. . .Glean."

"Sister."

"Easy. Resist ."

"Ideas."

"I. . ."

She swallowed hard. It was hard to focus while there was something clawing at the edge of her mind. Some terrible, miserable guilt, oozing and dripping. Her chest tightened. Will squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to know who it belonged to or what they had done.

"Um. A-Aides. Ideas becomes aides."

"Good." Her father glanced over at her. "We're almost there."

"Right."

"Feel."

Will breathed in.

"Flee."

The metal tracks beneath them ripped each other apart as the subway screeched to a halt. Everyone slowly leaned forward, as if underwater, then jerked back into reality as the car cane to a halt. The doors hissed open, and Adrian stood up. He looked down at Will, who was still staring at her knees. She nodded, and stood up to follow him.

As they moved to get off the train, they became tangled in the flood of people doing the same. Will was jostled from side to side. Her hands passed over metal, fabric, skin. Her ears began to hum. She tried to focus on her breathing. Then, she pushed out of the crowd with a gasp into the smoky air. The people dispersed quickly, each running off to their next place to be. Will was left alone with the pounding of her heart.

Her father came up behind her.

"You okay, kiddo?" he asked softly.

"I hate crowds," she said replied quietly.

"I know you do," he replied. "But they're a part of life, and a part of the city, so you have to get used to them."

"I know," Will sighed.

She turned to him and flashed him a small smile. He reached down and tugged one of her curls. Will knew he was trying to comfort her without touching her and making her feel anything more. Her father knew her better than anyone. And she'd never kept a secret from him. Which is why the knot in her stomach that had been there all morning was beginning to grow.

It was all Will could think about as they made their way to the office. It was the reason she hadn't want to come today, aside from pure laziness, even if she didn't want to admit it to herself. But as they drew closer to the warehouse, Will felt what had happened yesterday become a looming reality.

She had to tell her father what had happened with May.

Will knew she only had a few minutes before her father entered the office and went into business mode, smile lines filled with steel behind his wire rimmed glasses. She wanted to tell her dad, not her boss. She wasn't sure what this all meant just yet.

"Dad," she said, her footsteps slowing.

But the familiar crease between his brows had already appeared and he had slipped into his other self. Still, she knew this was too important to keep secret.

She pulled the sleeve of his sweater, tugging him aside before they pushed open the doors of the warehouse.

"Dad, something happened yesterday," she tried.

"What?" She could already hear a note of impatience in his voice.

"I don't really know how to explain it," Will continued in a low voice even though there was no one around to hear them. "I was with May Parker, a-and her grief—it was overwhelming."

"Did you have an attack?"

"No. Kind of. Dad, when I touched her it was like her grief became mine."

"What do you mean?"

"Like I took it from her. And she got everything good inside me instead."

Her father was paying attention now. His gray eyes were serious, focused on her face.

"Do it to me," he said suddenly.

Adrian pushed up his sleeve and held his arm out abruptly in her direction. His eyes never left hers.

"I—What? No!" Will protested.

"Do it," he insisted. "I'll be fine."

It wasn't like she was going to hurt him—this would only hurt her. But this new thing of hers was unpredictable and unknown and Will didn't want her dad anywhere near it.

Will pushed his arm away. "Dad, no, I'm not doing that."

He pulled his sleeve back down, eyes narrow.

"Fine. Then you can try it on someone else. Moira found the guy buying out weapons, MrGray3. You can give him a shot."

Will swallowed hard.

"Fine."

He gave her a nod and pushed open the door to the warehouse.

Inside, it was business as usual.

Will's thoughts were stifled under the static roar of saw blades and voices shouting. Sparks flew from one of the long tables in the middle, illuminating the metal masked face of a wiry man with a ponytail. Mason was settled into his table in the corner, Schultz towered near the door with his arms crossed, and Moira hovered next to Adrian's wings like a shadow. Everything was in its place.

As soon as Toomes and his daughter entered, Moira darted over. Her feet barely made any noise against the concrete. She was thin and wiry, but could break every finger in your left hand faster than you could blink.

"Mr. Gray is in Room 3," she told Adrian. "He came quietly. Didn't have to beat him down or anything. Says he wants to talk to you."

"Well, today he's going to talk to Will," her father said matter of factly.

Moira's eyes slid to Will. Will straightened her spine and pushed up the strap of her overalls, which had slipped down her shoulder. No one else really understood why her father brought her to work, why she was useful. To them, she was a teenage girl who knew too much, which only made her dangerous in one way. Not that Will was particularly dangerous in any other way. But she wasn't just a teenage girl.

"Will?" Moira asked incredulously.

"Will," her father nodded.

"I'll go ahead then," Will said, a strange rush of something in her veins, and lifted her chin in Moira's direction.

She walked towards Room 3, feeling two pairs of eyes on her back. After a moment, she heard the sound of her father's footsteps following. Will's palms began to feel clammy, and she wiped them on the side of her overalls quickly before her father reached her.

"What was that all about?" Adrian asked when he caught up.

"I'm not just a kid," Will said abruptly.

"I know that," he said, eyebrows drawn.

"I know, but no one else does. Sometimes it just. . .bothers me. I hate it when people think I'm less than I am."

"I thought you didn't want anyone to know about your powers."

"I don't. I just wish people knew I was powerful."

Will pushed open the door to Room 3 without stopping to see her father's reaction.

In the chair was a man. That, she'd expected. Everything else came as a shock. For some reason, in her mind, he'd been some grimy crime boss with tobacco teeth and a rusted gold chain. Not this man, who was seated in the chair like it was a throne. He was dressed in a perfectly pressed gray suit, true to the name. His eyes were bright blue and his hair was a shocking white and everything about him suggested ice and stone.

"Hello," he said pleasantly.

"Oh, go to hell, Jacob," Adrian groaned.

Will looked at him in shock. He was looking at the man in the chair with disdain.

"Old business partner. Short lived," he explained.

"Your father is a difficult man to do business with," Jacob said coolly.

"So, what? You decided to steal my business instead?" her dad snapped.

"Family business now, I see," Jacob smirked, nodding towards Will.

Adrian's jaw tensed, then released.

"I don't have time for this. Will, just do your thing, would you?" he said.

She stepped forward. Will tensed her wrists, forcing her hands to keep from shaking. Truth was, she was afraid. She'd never felt anything like what she felt on the subway, and she wasn't sure if she was ready to feel it again.

Will took his wrist. She expected it to be cold as ice, but it was warm and alive, with a pulse that beat below her thumb.

"What's this?" the gray man asked. "Don't tell me you've got your daughter in on it too."

Will focused on his pulse. She closed her eyes and pictures the room folding away into a tiny box, leaving her surrounded by black. She could feel his emotions like a veil around him. She thought about reaching through the veil, her fingers twisting through.

Then Will felt the fear rise inside her. Her heart curled up in her chest, muscle memory from the last time.

There was a jerk, and ache, another ripping of a fabric sewn from whispered thoughts and echoed feelings. But this time, the hole opened up somewhere else. Will was safe. In fact, she was happy, free, content. . .

There was a warmth seeping into the cracks of her bones that chased away a chill that had laid there for years. Will felt her heartbeat quicken. The contentment was growing larger, hotter, into euphoria. Will felt her face stretch into a smile as her chest burst with a thousand dreams.

And then she she heard it.

It was a scream, really, more than a sob. Her eyes flew open. Twisted under her, curled up into himself, was the gray man. Her fingers had pressed bruises into the fine bones of the wrist, but she knew that wasn't the pain that was causing tears to stream down his face.

"No. . .Please. . ," he whimpered, eyes glassy with something only he could see.

He curled further into himself, as someone had delivered a blow to his middle, and let out another howl.

"Please!" he sobbed.

And Will realized what had happened.

All her misery, her rage, her grief—had been passed onto him. It was festering inside him, eating him up. And she had taken every ounce of his happiness in return.

She'd been so afraid to be hurt by his grief that she'd fashioned it into a weapon against him.

Will let go of his wrist, practically flinging it away from her. As soon as she did, whatever bond had been forged was broken. The earth shifted beneath her feet with a jolt as Will staggered backwards.

She felt sick as she watched Jacob fall against the back of the chair limply. She felt sicker when she realized she could still feel his joy pulsing in her veins. The faintest trace of a smile lingered at the corners of her lips, beyond her control.

His sobs faded slightly, although she wasn't sure if it was because she'd let go or if the ringing in her ears just drowned it out.

Will spun, trying to find her father. He was in the corner of the room, arms folded and expression unreadable.

"Dad," she said.

"Moira!" he called out, ignoring her.

Moira came inside, the door closing behind her soundlessly. Her eyes widened as she saw the shell of the man who had sat upon the chair as if he'd owned it only moments earlier. He was powerless, reduced to a sobbing mess of a man with eyes glazed over in horror. Moira's mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes darted to Will, who had twisted her hands together in front of her to disguise the fact that they were still shaking.

"Will did that?" she heard Moira whisper to her father.

He nodded, eyes never leaving Jacob.

Moira looked at Will, and she saw the awe and shock in her eyes. And Will saw the fear too.

She felt a rush of power then, stronger than any she'd ever felt before. It mixed with the pure joy she still felt from touching the gray man, and it made her dizzy. Her fingertips burned where she'd dug them into Jacob's wrist, and her heart pounded. She felt like the trigger of a gun. She felt indestructible, a supernova of ash and ember. She felt good.

It terrified her.

"Take Jacob," her father ordered. "Dump him near Fifth where his cronies will find him. Tell him to never interfere with my business or my family ever again."

"I don't think I'll have to tell him," Moira said, casting a glance over at his shaking body.

"No," Adrian said. He almost sounded satisfied. "I don't think you will."

As soon as Moira left, Will spun to face her father.

"I'm sorry—I didn't mean to, I swear," she said, holding up her hands, which were still shaking.

"Didn't mean to what?" her dad asked calmly. "Take care of my business's biggest problem?"

"What?" Will said after a beat, taken aback.

"Will. Think about it. That truth or lie stuff, that's child's play now. We don't have to worry about that ever again. We can get the answers direct from the source."

"I don't—I don't understand."

"You can make anyone give us what we want, Will. You have a gift."

"You want me to torture people into giving you answers?"

"No—"

"No! No way! Dad!"

"Will, that's not what I'm saying."

"Dad."

Will looked at him in the eyes, but it wasn't her father. It was Adrian Toomes, thinking only of his next business venture. She pulled his sleeve imploringly.

"Dad," she begged. "Please don't make me do that ever again."

His mouth was set in a straight line like the edge of a blade.

"Please. I can't. Not ever," she said, voice cracking.

She sucked in a shaky breath.

And then he finally saw her. His eyes cleared, fog wiped from the glass. The shape crease between his brows softened.

"Fine. I won't make you do it again, okay?" he said.

"Promise?" she implored.

"Promise," he said firmly.

She grabbed his wrist. Will was breathing hard. Her hands were shaking violently, and she felt like her grip on his arm was the only thing tethering her to this world.

"Say it again," she demanded.

"What?" Adrian asked, his eyes traveling from her grip to her face.

"Promise again," she said firmly. "And I'll see if I believe you this time."

Her father's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her face.

"Fine," he said after a beat. "I promise."

Will swallowed as she waited for the lie to eat through her veins, but nothing happened. His heartbeat was steady beneath her fingertips. Will felt no guilt hidden in the corners of his words, curled and poised to strike.

Truth.

Will let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding and let go. She could see the imprint of her fingers in his skin like blue scars. She looked at the ground, face suddenly hot.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"You don't trust me." He didn't pose it as a question.

"I do trust you, Dad, I do—" she defended quickly.

"Good," he interrupted flatly.

"What?"

"Trust is a very fragile bridge to walk, Will. Be careful who you cross it with, if anyone."

"But you're my dad."

"And do you think I deserve your trust?"

Will looked into his eyes, gray coated in ice.

"Yes," she said.

He watched her.

"Right," he said finally.

She was glad then that he couldn't take her wrist and feel the sharp blade of the lie hidden under her skin.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: even though i dropped my phone in the toilet i managed to crank out this chapter can we take a moment to appreciate me. i know i only update once every 34 years when jupiter is in the seventh house and the moon is full and the crops are ripe for the picking but i fully plan to continue writing this don't worry. also this is unedited as usual, so i'm sorry it's kind of all over the place (is anyone surprised tho) (no)