31|| absinthe aftermath

"In about an hour, I've gone from the injured one to the one who saves everybody. Just peachy."

1115 Fitz Building, Queens, New York, October 2016-

DAYS UNTIL HOMECOMING: 6

Alison's hands were shaking, her heart racing. For the past hour, Alison had been frozen in place, the events that had just happened still swirling around in her mind like a snowstorm. Absinthe? Bringer of Death, and Alison's demise? She knew that she should probably tell someone, call anyone.

But she didn't. Alison was scared, and that was a severe understatement. Would Luciana- no, Absinthe, find out if she told anyone? At this point, so may questions were racing around Alison's head that she couldn't make sense of them all.

Then again, who could make sense of something like this? It wasn't everyday that a person stormed into your home, knocked out your guardian with a frying pan, yes, a freakin frying pan, and then used some magic voodoo to drop your only intermediate family left and your superhero partner into a coma-like sleep.

Alison decided to get up from her bed, throwing the sheets that were almost drowning her off of the area in which she was sitting. Gingerly throwing her feet over to the side of the bed, Alison saw Peter, still knocked out in front of her.

At least she knew where he was, even if he was unconscious. That was a start, a small one at least. Now to the next part of her "rescue mission", getting herself out of this bedroom. Standing up with the most care a person can take when getting up, Alison began to take slow baby steps towards the door.

So far so good. Maybe getting attacked by a crazy woman and the daughter of a man named Thanos did wonders to your spine. Alison made it out to the hallway, still seeing no sign of Absinthe, and no sign of anyone awake.

Alison was alone, and unlike every other times she had spent in the apartment solo, she did not enjoy it. Being attacked in your own apartment left some creepy memories, and some weird thoughts that would never be settled.

Walking through the hallway, Alison found the kitchen and living area an even bigger mess than she thought it would be. The "gift basket" Luciana had brought was shattered all over the main entrance floor, glass apparent from the jam jars and their contents spread all over the hardwood floor. The wine bottle was surprisingly in tact, still on the counter where Luciana had left it.

Of course, Alison had her suspicions about what was inside of that bottle. Poison? A drug to knock people out? Crinkling her nose in disgust, Alison took the bottle off of the counter, and threw the bottle into the trash.

At least that part of the kitchen was clean. The kitchen was made up of a small island facing the living room and television, the sink, stove, and cabinets behind the island. Out of every place in the apartment, Alison probably hated the kitchen the most at the moment. The kitchen had the lingering stench of Luciana's memory, although the frying pan which Jackie had been knocked out with was still lying on the stove.

Taking the frying pan from the stove, which hadn't been on at the time of the attack, thank goodness, Alison placed it in the sink that was a few feet away from the stove. She'd wash it later, but at the moment, Ali had to concern herself with the mess on the floor.

The mess on the floor was, well, messy. The actual sweet and syrupy smell of jam began to waft through the apartment, almost making that smell disgusting. It was like smelling too much corn syrup, a smell that was a mixture of burning and too much sugar.

That smell and splatter of jam needed to be disposed of, and as quickly as possible.

Tentatively picking up the glass pieces, Alison started to throw away the shards that could cause damage if one would step on them. There were fragments of all sizes, from half of an entire jar to a piece the size of your pinky toenail.

Once all the glass was picked up, Alison decided to leave the jam on the floor. That was it wouldn't look too suspicious when Jackie woke up, as Alison literally did none of her chores. Plus, the less time that her cousin, Charles, and Peter had thought passed, the less chances there were of them freaking out.

But Alison was pretty sure that either way, Jackie would freak out, and so would Peter. He was already screwed because Tony had basically given him the grounding of a superhero, and May was on his back about getting to his apartment on time. At least that was what Alison assumed Peter's aunt would be like.

Might as well mop if Jackie was already going to be freaked out. Opening up the cabinet door that contained the cleaning supplies, Alison took the Mini Swiffer they had and the wet pads they had to accompany the Swiffer-mopper.

Attaching the wet pad to the Swiffer, Alison began to wipe up the sticky mess that was left on the floor. It didn't clean up quickly, apparent by the four disposable wet pads that were stacked up next to each other after fifteen minutes of cleaning. By the fifth wet pad, Alison had cleaned up the mess that Luciana had left behind.

Alison felt like a house maid after cleaning up the kitchen, and it wasn't the best feeling in the world. The apartment was still eerily silent, Jackie laying on the floor right next to where the jam spill had been. That was a problem. Jackie should probably be taken to her bedroom, so she wouldn't completely spazz out when she woke up.

Heaving a particularly large sigh, Alison grabbed her cousin's arm, beginning to drag her cousin down the hallway towards Jackie's room. The loud sound of smearing clothes could be heard as Alison heaved Jackie down the hallway. When the short trip to the room was over, Alison threw some pillows on the ground, placed Jackie on top of them, and threw a blanket on her cousin.

One down, two to go. And the other two wouldn't be as easy, Alison was sure of it. Walking into her bedroom to check on Queen's favorite (and only) wall crawler, Alison made the irrational decision to try shaking Peter awake. That, of course, didn't work, and Alison had no clue on how to wake him up.

Unless....

Maybe there was someone who could help her with this particular situation. Someone with a eye for fashion and for an andriod, which Ali found to be kind of weird. But to every girl their own, right?

Taking her phone off of her mantel, Alison opened her phone to see that Skylar had texted her. It was a spam of a ton of puppy gifs, and complaining about packing the Avengers Tower room that she used to occupy. And although texting Skylar back would be nice, Alison knew that wasn't what she was going on her phone for.

A half charged phone meant no messing around texting Skylar. It meant Alison had to get down to business. Grabbing a piece of paper from inside of her phone case, Ali inspected the awfully scribbled out digits that had been given to her around the time that she had been dragged into the world of superheroes.

Pressing the digits into her phone, Alison pulled the phone up to her ear, hearing the familiar buzz of a call going through a line. The seconds seemed to take hours, Alison's mind thinking of the worse possible outcomes.

What if the feds had caught her? What if she wasn't by her phone? What if.... But before long, all of Alison's fears were alleviated, as she heard a voice that had been missed for a long time.

"Hi, this is the Wanda Maximoff hotline, how can I help you?" A slightly accented voice spoke through the phone. Wanda's voice seemed slightly amused, her smile almost heard through the phone line.

"Losing the Eastern European accent I see." Alison snickered, greeting her friend in an almost casual way. It was kind of nice to hear Wanda's voice, and the superhero did make Alison smile as the teenager recalled the memories of getting to fight together, and then stuck in a prison. Ah, memories.

"And I heard you haven't been able to lose your streak of getting into trouble!" Wanda fake gasped, giving a small chuckle. "I've been following the news. Although most of it has been from Viz-"

"So you're on a nickname basis now? Last time I heard from you was when you and Clint were hiding out together." Alison raised an eyebrow, starting to get suspicious of her friend's behavior. "Unless you snuck off on your own..." She implied, wiggling her eyebrows. The action wasn't visible to Wanda, of course, but it was heavily implied.

Wanda just rolled her eyes, a sigh forming at the edge of her lips as she spoke her next words. "Nah, I'm still jumping from hotel to hotel, but without Clint. He took a deal to stay on house arrest for his family or something." Wanda dismissed the subject, hoping to shift the subject to something else. "But seriously, I told you only to call this in case of emergencies. Can't be on the run and have you calling me all the time."

"I know, I know. And it is an emergency." Alison clarified, sitting on her bed once again. Casting a glance over at Peter, Ali couldn't help but sigh. "Let me break down what just happened at the Anderson-Marnell household."

It took Alison about five minutes to explain the hellish ordeal that occurred, complete with some wild hand gestures, that Wanda could not see, of course, and a string of words that wouldn't be appropriate for any person to repeat, anywhere.

Wanda was shellshocked, and that was putting it mildly. The story Alison was weaving was definitely a bizarre one. "You said her name was Absinthe?" She asked again, trying to wrap her head around the whole situation. "Daughter of..."

"Thanos." Alison finished, starting to pace around her room a little impatiently. "She said she would kill me, but not until her father's plans for me had been executed." Alison gave a deep breathing, still trying to process the whole thing herself.

"That's.." Wanda couldn't speak. The whole ordeal was scary, especially after having everyone else in the apartment knocked out. She couldn't even imagine what it was like, and she had seen her whole city fall into the ground after Ultron.

"Ominous?" Alison supplied the word, knowing that it wasn't a rather good one to be suggesting. Even using that word sent some unneeded chills up her spine.

"To say the least, yes." Wanda agreed, shivering at the situation. "Besides telling me about this crazy woman, what do you need my spooky magic specialties for?" She asked, brushing a piece of hair out of her face.

"Remember how I said my brother Charles and Peter were like in a coma or something?" Alison scratched her head, trying to find a proper way to describe what kind of state they were in. It was definitely a complicated one, being knocked unconscious by a set of powers that neither Ali or Wanda had any knowledge of.

"Yeah, what about it?" Wanda questioned, opening the small curtains of her dingy hotel room, in the middle of who knows where. The sound of the curtains screeching open was apparent over the phone, and Alison winced at the loud sound.

"I kind of need your helping waking them up. Have any ideas?" Alison tilted her head, carefully balancing her phone between her ear and her shoulder, trying to shoot her dirty laundry into her laundry basket.

"As a matter of a fact, I think that I may have an inkling..."

"So slap them awake?" Alison asked, pacing around the floor. She had been on call with Wanda for about 15 minutes now, trying to discuss strategies. They had already tried playing loud noises, which, surprisingly, hadn't woken up Jackie. They had tried placed water on their faces- correction, Peter's, as Alison still wanted to prank Peter from some random prank at school.

"Slapping someone seems rather logical." Wanda's blatant shrug and bland tone could be heard through the phone. "I mean, if they don't wake up after being slapped, then there's something seriously wrong. And, as much as I hate to admit it, you'd probably have to talk to Tony."

"And have literally all of my other life decisions and choices taken away? No thank you." Alison walked outside of the room she had spent the past 15 minutes drafting ideas in. "I'd rather keep trying other things with you." She saw her brother still unconscious on the couch.

Alison almost let out a small sob, seeing her brother still helpless. He seemed to be twitching, so whatever he was experiencing must of been awful. Her heart seemed to almost melt, with pity and with helplessness. She hated that feeling, that feeling of helplessness. It wormed its way into someone's heart and whispered awful thoughts into one's brain.

"Alison?" Wanda interrupted, breaking Alison away from the evil monster of helplessness that loomed right behind her. "You should most definitely try that slapping thing." Wanda herself was running out of ideas, as she couldn't do much but suggest ideas to Alison.

"Hm?" Alison naturally responded through the phone, her eyes still lingering on the small lump that was her brother. "Oh yeah. I'll try that in a minute." She dismissed, walking closer to her brother. She wanted to hug her brother, tell him that whatever was going on in his brain wasn't true, but there wasn't anything Alison could do.

Damn helplessness. It was creeping up on Alison, and it wasn't very fun. Turning away from her brother, Alison started to walk away from the living room and the sofa where her brother lay. The more that she didn't look at her brother, the less that the helplessness would overtake her.

And as soon as she took a step out into the hallway doorway, a bloodcurdling scream that was the scream of one person Alison knew rather well. "Charlie?" Whirling around, Alison's mind only thought of her brother, and not of the safety issues that she should of considered. She gasped, seeing him wide and awake, his eyes open and his breathing patterns heavy. Her phone dropped to the ground, the phone hitting the speaker button.

Wanda's distressed voice could be heard through the loud open speaker, asking Alison what was going on. She could not be heard, however, as all of Alison's attention was focused on her brother. The helplessness that had begun to pierce Alison's heard fled quickly, like a mouse would flee from a cat.

Rushing over to her brother in an instant, using her super speed (which had been explicitly tabooed by Tony and Jackie for Ali to use), Alison could see that her brother was in distress. Ali placed her hands on his shoulders, her eyes having a scared look. Assessing her brother, Alison could see many red flags.

His eyes were filled with fear and terror, unlike the usual glint of curiosity that lingered behind them. Charles' breaths were coming in heavy, and in a rapid succession. His face looked pale, as if all the blood had drained from his face. Alison could only make out a few words that he was saying, most of them alarming.

"Charlie, what happened? What did she do to you?" Alison was growing more and more weary of when Peter would wake up. This meant nothing good, and that was abundantly clear.

Charles looked up at Alison, his words finally making sense. "Ali... you're alive." He melted into her, embracing her tightly. "I saw... you and mom and dad.. you were...." Charles paused, a rattling breath going through his body. "I thought that you... you ..." He shivered, Alison feeling his shaking. It sent goosebumps up Alison's spine, chilling her to the bone. What had Absinthe shown him?

He seemed to hold her embrace on for forever, a few fat tears slipping off of his cheeks, falling onto the front of Alison. "I-I am so happy to see you safe. I thought you..... you were gone, and I was all alone." Charles gripped her even tighter, Alison hugging him softly back.

Alison was shocked. What had that damn woman done to him? What could she do? Who could she target next? Instead of consoling her brother, Ali was thinking of all the possibilities of the horrors that lay in front of her.

And Alison realized in that instant that if she couldn't take down Absinthe by herself, her life and family could be at risk. She couldn't have that, and even her friends were screwed. Peter was already experiencing whatever Charles went through, and that wasn't a very good thing. Her mind raced for answers, of some possible way to take the woman who made her life a mess, and more complicated.

"Alison?" Wanda yelled through the phone, clearly audible now. Her voice was raised, concern apparent in her voice. The phone was still in the hallway doorway, but the noise coming from it was abundantly loud. "I swear, if you don't tell me what the hell-"

"Ali-Cat?" Charles croaked, using her nickname from their childhood. "Who's calling you? Or who're you talking to?" He pulled back from her embrace, his face still filled with fear. Seems like these things couldn't be shaken off easily, like getting punches thrown at you by a master archer.

Alison kissed the top of Charles' head, letting go of her brother. "A friend from Germany. Now let me grab the phone, so that I can talk to her, and maybe you can say hello." She walked over to the phone, picking up the device.

Charles' eyes lit up a, bit brighter. It was an improvement from the expression seconds before, as the mention of the superhero always made him smile. "Germany?" He asked, his voice still a slight bit weary. "You mean like a superhero?"

Alison made her way back to the sofa, plopping down next to her brother. "Yeah, I mean a superhero. Who else would I have met in Germany? Dad?" She joked, knowing the humor was a bit mean. Ah, it was too late to take back the comment, all Alison could do was hope that Charles didn't react badly.

"Too soon." Charles warned, shaking his head. His mood was improving, way too quickly, which made Alison skeptical. However, it still made Alison flash a small smile. "Don't make that joke with me." He gave a small chuckle, his voice still kind of raspy from screaming.

"I think that joke was funny." Wanda piped up from the phone, reminding everyone that she was still here. "Although I don't know as much insight as you would do, Charles." She made her appearance known, making Charles a tad more excited to talk to a superhero.

"You know my name?" Charles asked rather blandly, quirking an eyebrow over at Alison, who gave him an eyeball back. "Did Alison tell you all kinds of super secret information about me?" He cracked a joke, his normal personality cracking through his scared mindset.

Wanda chuckled, realizing that Charles was exactly the person Alison had told her about months before. "No, just that you loved superheroes like me. Although I think that I don't really count anymore. Wanda Maximoff was really only a troublemaker for the Avengers." Wanda laughed dryly.

"Scarlet Witch?" Charles almost squealed with glee. Seems that Alison's first hypothesis about what the visions would do to Charles were wrong. Charles could shake this off easily, as superheroes trumped scary visions any day. "Dude-" He turned to Alison, his face filled with shock and admiration. "You are so much cooler than before. Mister Stark was one thing, but a rebellious Avenger like Scarlet Witch is so much cooler."

Alison gave a dry chuckle, shaking her head. Placing her phone down on the sofa cushion, Alison looked over at her brother, who was still looking at Ali with awe in his eyes. "Now you need to shush up, the adults are talking." She patted her brother's back fondly.

"Adults? I'm pretty sure that I'm more mature than the both of you combined." Charles shook his head, almost wincing at the impact of Alison's hard pat on the back. His small geeky bit of humor was back, and like every other sign, Alison knew that Charles was recovering from whatever small breakdown that he had when he woke up from the vision.

"Mm..." Wanda's voice teased over the speaker, softer now that it was muffled by the cushion. "You are most definitely more mature than Alison, but maybe not as mature as I am, Mister Marnell."

Before Charles could even speak another word, Wanda continued talking through the phone. "Charles, if you don't mind, what did you see? Anything that you give us could help me- and your sister-" Wanda corrected, hearing Alison clear her throat over the phone as Wanda mentioned herself, "Make sure that this doesn't happen to anyone else."

Charles looked a little hesitant, but nodded. "Well, it was the apartment, so I thought that I had just passed out." He explained, taking another deep breath. "And when I made my way into your bedroom Alison, cause I wanted to make sure that you were okay-" Charles' voice cracked, almost cutting himself off.

"You don't have to continue if you don't want to." Alison murmured, picking up her phone and scooted closer to her brother. She wanted to reassure her brother, but Charles just kind of flinched away from her. It discouraged Ali, but she wouldn't stop trying to help him."I really mean it, if it's too painful for you to-"

"No." Charles shook his head. "I can do this, just let me catch my breath." He took a deep breath in, continuing on with what he was saying. "Uhm, I came into your room, and I saw you and Jackie, but Jackie was bent over your bedside, her head at a weird angle." Charles' voice broke at the next part. "And then there was you, your eyes wide open, your face pale and stoic. You weren't moving, and, and-" He almost choked out a sob, signaling that he was close to breaking.

"I think that's enough." Alison interrupted Charles' description, knowing that discussing their parents would only bring about more chaos. "Wanda, can you work off of that?" She asked her friend, mentally crossing her fingers for her friend to say yes. Alison herself didn't want to hear any more of Charles' horrible dream-trance-vision thing.

"I think so." Wanda agreed with Alison's silent plea, seeming slightly unsure of herself over the phone, but still pressing on. "If I figure anything out, I'll be sure to let you know." She informed Alison, cutting off their time. "Now, I've gotta hang out, as I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna be busted with this burner phone. I'll text you the new number when I get it. Bye." Wanda hung up the phone, leaving Alison and Charles alone.

Watching the phone screen go back to the home screen, Alison and Charles looked at each other, Charles finally breaking. Falling into her arms, Charles breathed out heavily, Alison wrapping her arms around her brother softly. He burst out into sobs, letting his tough facade in front of a superhero break, heaving and crying in Alison's arms.

Turns out these things weren't so easy to get over.

<~*~>

A/N:

oof, my favorite word

there's a reason why I take a while with filler chapters. or chapters that aren't filled with action. they're a pain in the butt to write, as you're kinda stuck in the twilight zone when it comes to trying to figure out what to do with the chapter.

I wrote two drafts of this, one in my head (which I killed quickly), and one actually on here (which took a little while to die), before coming to the okay chapter you see before you.

anyways, enough of my whining and complaining, cause I'm actually having fun writing, hehe. I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you guys in the next chapter!

bye.

:))