CHAPTER NINETEEN
Surface Pressure

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            WHEN THE DUST CLEARED, Cecelia found herself kneeling on the ground with part of a support beam jutting from her chest. It pierced through her skin with none of the gore that would be expected from this kind of injury—no puddles of blood, no ravaged flesh, no broken spine. There was no pain, either; in fact, the only parts of her body that hurt were her face, still smarting from Uncle's blow, and her shoulder, which must have been clipped before she'd gone fully intangible. Her ears were ringing, and her eyes burned from the cloud of dust that had crawled its way in, but she could still stand, albeit on shaking legs. She moved out of the support beam, which had the first glimmers of fire forming on its end, and became solid again.

When she inhaled, in came another clump of dust. She coughed violently, attempting to dispel it from her lungs, tears streaming from her face. Her blurry gaze flickered down to her shoulder, noticing the blood that leaked sluggishly from a shallow laceration. She put a hand against it, and her palm got soaked within seconds.

It was only then that the shock wore off.

The warehouse had completely crumbled to the ground. What had used to be a standing building—a building Cecelia had spent a large portion of these past five years in—was now nothing but rubble. It had been broken down to its fundamentals: support beams, concrete, pipes. The things that had made up its interior, the things that had turned it into what it was, were gone. Everything that Cecelia had worked on for the past five years (well, everything that hadn't circulated elsewhere, anyway) was now destroyed. Crushed. Nothing but memories now.

Fires bloomed like flowers, unfurling their petals. The smoke lay heavily in the air, blocking out the already dark night. The air smelled like ash, burning Cecelia's nostrils. Glass crunched under her feet.

But she was alive. Of course, she was. Uncle and Toomes had tried to bring the building down on her head, but her powers had yet again saved her life. What made her a freak of nature, what made her both useful and useless in the eyes of her uncle had ensured that she kept breathing for another day.

They must have known that she would survive. They must have. They couldn't have really been trying to kill her, right? Even though she'd finally broken free from Uncle, even though she'd finally put her foot down and said no, he wouldn't have wanted her dead. He wouldn't have. And neither would Toomes.

It was only then that she realized they might not have done it because of her.

Peter.

Cecelia sprung around, squinting through the haze of smoke. In the chaos of everything, she'd almost forgotten about him. Almost forgotten that he'd been beside her, in his stupid homemade Spider-Man costume, right when everything went south. Right when the final support beam was cut and it all came crashing down.

Peter... Peter didn't have Cecelia's abilities. He may have had super-strength, but there was a difference between lifting a car and lifting hundreds of tons of debris. He may have had super-healing, but there was a difference between a stab wound and a support beam through the chest.

Cecelia settled a hand to her heart, feeling whole, undamaged skin there. If Peter had been in her place... if something similar had happened to him...

No, no, no.

"Peter!" she called out, turning in circles. Her silver jumpsuit had turned black with ash, and blood continued to pour from her shoulder. Her hair was matted to her forehead, and her hood had fallen from her head. "Peter! Peter Parker! Spider-Man!"

She strained her ears (she didn't have super-hearing like Peter, either), but no weak calls greeted her ears. In fact, other than the occasional crunches as the debris shifted and the crackle of the ever-growing fires, there was silence.

Oh, Creator. Oh, Creator. Cecelia bent over just as her stomach clenched. Pulling up her mask for a moment, she retched, throwing up everything she'd eaten earlier—from the punch and cheeseballs from Homecoming to the leftover fry bread and Wojapi she'd had for an afternoon dessert to the waffles that had been breakfast. Soon enough, she was down on her hands and knees, throat burning as everything came back up.

More tears threatened. Even beneath her mask, which provided a little more oxygen than the outside world surely had, breathing became difficult. A panic attack approached, and she put her head between her knees.

When she closed her eyes, she was no longer fifteen years old, but five, clasping onto the hand of her social worker as she walked among the smoking hole in the ground that used to be her home. Back then, she'd been the only one to survive.

History had repeated itself. Peter was dead. Uncle and Toomes had killed him. And now, here she was, standing alone, surviving something that she shouldn't have.

Cecelia was fully capable of dying. She nearly had in the Washington Monument, then again in the Staten Island Ferry. But she was also excellent at cheating the swing of the Grim Reaper's scythe. Even when she didn't want to. Even when, sometimes, she thought she should have just perished like the rest of the members of her reservation.

She shook, feeling more like a ghost than ever. Phantom. What an apt name for what she was. Not a person. She was never a person. She was always going to be the one cursed to haunt the world that had so tormented her.

A sob broke free. Childish thoughts followed.

I want to go home.

I want Mom and Dad.

I don't want to do this anymore.

Then... strained and weak, barely caught by Cecelia's ears, came a gasp.

Cecelia stumbled to her feet immediately, looking around wildly. "Peter?" she called out tentatively, frozen. She wanted—needed—Peter to be alive. If he was... well. That meant she wasn't really alone.

A few more gasps, then a clatter as something shifted. Cecelia followed the sound, barely realizing she was moving, her world narrowed down to a point. She was close enough that the raw voice rang right in her ears when it screamed.

"Hello? Hello?! Please, hey. Hey, please. I'm down here."

It was Peter's voice. He was alive. He was alive.

But Cecelia had never heard him sound so... ravaged before. It was obvious he was in pain, perhaps enough pain to render him immobile. What if he died, anyway? What if Cecelia couldn't help him? She was useless she was completely useless she'd always been useless—

"I'm down here. I'm stuck. I can't move. I can't—"

Cecelia moved. She couldn't see Peter, but she could track his voice, which seemed to be coming from a particularly large pile of debris. She reached out a hand as if he would somehow take it. Then she called for him again.

"Peter!"

Peter, who'd started sobbing, an anguished sound that nearly tore even Cecelia's cold, dead heart in two—though maybe that was just guilt. Guilt that she'd played a part in this, that it had been her uncle that had helped do this, that she'd never been strong enough before to stand up to him—cut off abruptly. He wheezed again, and there was another shift in the debris. "Cecelia?"

"Peter. Oh, Creator. Peter. It's me, it's me, it's me. Holy hell. I thought you were dead."

"Cecelia," Peter said again. Maybe he was just holding onto the fact that he wasn't alone. Cecelia certainly was. "Are you—aagh—are you hurt?"

Cecelia looked down to her shoulder. The bleeding was beginning to slow.

"Not really," she answered. "I managed to go intangible before the worst of it, but my shoulder is bleeding a bit. But are you... where are you?"

"I don't know. I don't know. I can't—I can't see you. Cecelia, please—"

Cecelia let her edges blur and stepped right through the debris, searching for a familiar flash of red. "I'm so sorry," she said. Her voice trembled. "Peter. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. This is all my fault. I'm not... I didn't... I didn't want this."

"It's not your fault," came Peter's voice. It was still broken, like he'd been screaming for hours. Cecelia knew that wasn't true, but the thought made her heart clench anyway. "It's not. You just—just please, help me."

Cecelia took another few steps forward. Peter finally came into view.

He was lying under a pile of rubble that pressed against his back and legs, keeping him pinned. He'd taken off his mask, leaving a tear-stained, swollen face. His hair was matted to his forehead, and his lips were tight with pain. There was no visible blood, but anything could have been happening where Cecelia couldn't see. He could be—what if—

"I need your help," Peter hissed from between clenched teeth. "I can't—I can't move. Please."

Cecelia nodded. Another tear squeezed itself from her eye. "Okay. Okay. Um, I'll try."

She got closer to Peter, letting her body fill again. Once she was fully tangible, she reached out for the largest piece of rubble, the one pinning Peter down. With a grunt, she pressed the full weight of her body against it (which wasn't really much, if she was being honest) and attempted to shove it off of her classmate. It didn't budge. Cecelia kept pushing, her muscles trembling.

"Cecelia," Peter said. Cecelia ignored him in favour of continuing to heave, sweat beading at her temples. "Cecelia."

Cecelia kicked the fractured support beam. Pain jumped into her toe.

"CeCe!"

"What?" Cecelia snapped.

"That's not going to work."

Cecelia stopped. Her eyes met Peter's. With his old costume on, and his mask discarded, Peter didn't look like Spider-Man. He looked like the kid he was—the kid who'd gotten in far over his head. He looked like a boy who deserved to go home to his aunt and leave the fighting to the grown-ups.

There was also... resignation in his expression. It was as if he'd known from the start that Cecelia wouldn't be able to help him, but had hoped she could, anyway.

Her chin trembled. "What can I do, then?" she asked. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm too weak. I'm weak and fucking useless, and maybe Uncle was right, maybe I should have—"

"No."

In the stirrings of another panic attack, Cecelia drew to a shuddering stop.

"What?"

"Your uncle was wrong about you, Cecelia. Everything he told you—it wasn't true. You're not weak. You're one of... you're one of the strongest people I've ever met. And you're not useless, either. There's no such thing as a useless person. You're not a machine, you're a person. And I think sometimes your uncle forgot about that part.

"It's okay if you can't do this. You don't have to do everything. You're allowed to have faults. And I... I think I can do it. I think I... I think I'll have to do it."

"By yourself?" Cecelia took in his awkward positioning, his floppy limbs. "But, Peter—"

He gave her an unsure smile. "Spider-Man, remember? Super-strength."

Then he braced his arms above his head, and shoved.

"Come on, Peter," he whispered to himself, trembling under the weight. Chunks of debris rained down upon him. "Come on, Spider-Man. Come on, Spider-Man. Come on, Spider-Man!"

The rubble moved. Slowly but surely, it shifted, breaking into pieces. Peter stood, still trembling, inching himself up one second at a time, until his back was completely free. He dropped into a crouch and threw up his arms, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

And with a final shove, he was free.

Peter coughed into his filthy Spider-Man suit and dropped his head, gasping for air. Cecelia moved forward, her mouth agape. He'd... he'd done it. He'd lifted more than most professionals couldn't dream of ever even moving in their lifetimes.

She sat down beside him, putting her head in her hands while Peter recovered. It didn't take long for his breathing to slow—maybe he had super stamina, too. Then, suddenly, his hand settled on her shoulder.

She blinked up at him. "Are you okay?" she asked, her voice barely over a whisper. "Did you break anything?"

"No. No, I'm okay." Peter rubbed her arm in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, but just turned out awkward instead. He coughed again, though this time it was likely not from the dust. "Um... your heart's going really fast."

"I wonder why?" she drawled, then nearly burst into tears again. "I can't believe this happened. My uncle... he never even loved me. He was just keeping me around because I was... because I could help him. He doesn't care about me. If he did, he wouldn't have—he wouldn't have done this."

"I'm sorry."

"I just—I just—" Cecelia took in a deep breath, remembering the trick of it all. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Nice and slow. "I think I hate him, Peter. But I also still love him. Is there something wrong with that?"

"No," Peter responded. "Of course not."

Before he could say more, something beyond Cecelia seemed to have caught his gaze. He inhaled sharply through his nose and sprung to his feet. "There's the Vulture."

"What?"

"On that billboard. The plane hasn't taken off yet. He's waiting for it. Oh, God... Cecelia, I'm sorry, but I—I have to—I have to stop him."

"I understand," Cecelia responded. She hadn't before, because before, she'd believed it was all for a good cause. But not anymore. And even if she'd had any doubts when she'd joined Peter, all of them had been quelled when Toomes had dropped a building on her head. "Go, Peter."

He tilted his head. Creator. Sometimes he reminded her of a lost puppy. "What about you? Aren't you—I mean, you don't have to come with me, I just thought—"

Now it was Cecelia's turn to stand. She did so with legs that felt like jelly and a tear-streaked face, but she did it nonetheless. With one hand, she pulled the mask from her face, freeing the bottom half to the ashy air. It burned to breathe in, but she stuffed it in her pocket, anyway.

"I said I would help you," she said. "And I will. There are two men we need to stop, Peter."

Peter took in her expression. "Oh."

She gave him a determined nod. "While you go after the Vulture, Peter, I'll take care of my uncle."

RICHARD PORTLAND LIVED in a humble apartment in Manhattan, New York, ironically only a few blocks away from the Avengers Tower. It had one bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen tucked into one corner, a living room in the other. It was the kind of disorganized mess that signalled single man, with unwashed dishes practically living in the sink, mould between the tines of the bathroom tiles, and garbages overflowing with takeout boxes. Neither the mess nor the size of the apartment was a factor of poverty—Uncle just wasn't home often enough to care. To him, his apartment was simply a place to sleep and occasionally eat in, nothing else. He spent most of his time at the workshop, anyway.

Cecelia had been there a few times when she was younger, though Mom had discouraged overnight trips when she found out her daughter had to sleep on the couch. Mostly she'd gone alone, but there had been one occasion in which the entire Olivier family had been invited over for dinner. It had been a tough fit, making space for all seven at them at the table that was meant for two at most, but they'd managed it. They'd had Domino's Pizza for dinner, and Jules had picked all of the vegetables off his slice.

It had been two years since Cecelia had last gone to his apartment, but she knew the route off by heart now. It was the only place she could think that he'd be—although he'd had a few girlfriends over the years, and sometimes crashed at their homes for a little while, he wasn't currently seeing anyone. And all of his exes, Cecelia had heard, hadn't spoken to him after they'd broken up.

Rather than attempting to jumpstart Flash's wrecked car, Cecelia used a more reliable way to get to Uncle's apartment: her boots. The solar battery that charged them had just enough juice to get her there both safer and quicker than it would have been if she'd attempted public transportation.

She slid her mask back on and took off, her boots carrying her into the air with ease. The warehouse slowly shrunk as she got higher, until it was nothing but a pile of broken LEGO bricks. Within them, she squinted for the red LEGO figure of Peter Parker, even though he was long gone now. After they'd said their harried goodbyes, Peter had taken off after Toomes like a bullet, determined to reach him before he could pawn everything important from the Avengers Tower.

A part of her regretted not going with him, even though she knew—or, at least, hoped—he'd be fine. If Peter could pull himself out of the rubble of a collapsed building, if he could save the lives of the Academic Decathlon Team in the Washington Monument's elevator, if he could take down Schultz... well, then, he had to be able to win against Toomes.

And Cecelia... well, Uncle may have been a villain (the thought made her gut twinge, knowing that had been her, too, that she had become a horrible person, that this might not even make up for it), but he wasn't the same kind of villain Toomes was. He'd never gone into battle, never taken on an alias. Even when Toomes had suggested he at least have his own suit, Uncle had refused. According to him, his place would never be a battlefield.

He was almost smarter than Toomes, in that regard. After all, the ones who stayed behind were the ones who survived.

Cecelia's shoulder stung as she re-entered the hustle and bustle of NYC, but she didn't let it slow her down. The bleeding had stopped, now, revealing a set of pink scratches that curved up to the beginning of her collarbone. They were still open wounds, though, and would have to be looked at when all of this was over. Mom would probably have a mental breakdown about the potential infection that could worm its way inside.

The thought of Mom, of course, brought up thoughts of the rest of her family. What were Mom and Dad doing right now, while she shot through the city like a bullet? Was Jules filming another video for his YouTube channel? Was Eva fueling her Instagram addiction with hours of endless scrolling?

And what were Alex and Christine thinking? Not only had Cecelia's excuse of going to the bathroom been flimsy as hell, but it had grown even more so with every minute that passed where she didn't return. They had probably called—Cecelia hadn't checked her phone yet. What if they were genuinely worried? What if they thought something had happened to her? What if—

Focus, she told herself, swooping around another building. Honestly, she'd hate to admit it, but she felt like Iron Man whenever she did this. And yes, she'd taken inspiration when she'd originally been designing the boots, but that was only to fine-tune the mechanics. It was back when she'd hated Iron Man (and maybe she still did—he still was a billionaire, after all, even if he was starting to go completely green), and because of that, she'd tried to distance herself from him as much as possible.

Now, though, she might as well try to be a superhero.

She arrived at her uncle's apartment in record time. There, it was easy enough to land on the balcony she knew to be Uncle's and melt her way through the sliding glass doors. No reason to attempt to pick the lock.

When she'd gotten through, she took a slow, deep breath. This was a mistake, as it came with the sharp stench of an unkept home—beer, sweat, even piss. Cecelia shuddered a little bit, and her finger—the one Uncle had snapped on a day he was particularly mad—twitched. In fact, every scar that he'd given her seemed to twinge just by being exposed to this foul air. Her side. The mostly faded line on her throat. The jagged marks on her palms.

You're not there.

Cecelia took one step forward, then another. She wanted a Xanax—craved it, actually—but she never brought her medication with her on missions. Until she got home, until she got this done, she would have to get through her anxiety on sheer will.

Breathe. Think of things that make you safe.

Making Wojapi with Mom and Dad. Watching movies with Eva and Jules. Linking arms with Alex and Christine. Raising her hand in Academic Decathlon.

And sitting with Peter on that park bench, steam curling from her coffee cup.

That last one made her pause, but she was already breathing easier. You can do this. You can do this.

Uncle wasn't in the joined kitchen-dining-room-living-room area of his apartment. Cecelia could hear him, though. He was moving around in his bedroom, occasionally muttering to himself, his bedsprings creaking on occasion as he sat down.

Just the sound of his footsteps brought back flashbacks she'd rather not have relived. Her side flared with a particularly fierce phantom pain, and she nearly cried out. The only reason she didn't was that she was used to being silent.

She crept her way towards his room, already prepping her stunners. But when she poked her head through his wall—reconnaissance; she wasn't about to barge in there without knowing where he was—she lowered her wrists.

Uncle was bustling about his room—which was just as messy as the rest of his apartment, though that may have been because of his present activities—shoving nearly everything he owned into the large, black suitcase that sat on his bed. Piles of clothes had already been tossed inside haphazardly, along with a clear Ziploc bag of toiletries, his laptop, and cans of food. The phone on his dresser kept chiming—his ringtone was some Beatles song—but he made no move to answer whoever was consistently calling him. Instead, he continued to pack, carding a hand through his already tousled hair. His beard, too, was unkempt.

What the hell was he doing?

Cecelia drew her head back out of the wall and shifted around the corner. Her heart was beating so fast that it was nearly vibrating. There'd been a cigarette lighter lying beside a bottle of shampoo. One of his belts was strewn across his pillows. Both were reminders of what he'd done—what he still could do.

But—

"Cecelia, you don't have to let him treat you like this. I know you don't want it. And I know you don't deserve it."

Peter was right. She didn't have to sit by and just take her uncle's abuse. In fact, she had the best defense of all—the ability to literally slip out of his grasp. And maybe it was rude, but rudeness was Cecelia Olivier's specialty. She was a bitch, and she might as well embrace it.

Cecelia took one more breath. Again, the stenches of Uncle's home seeped into her, but at least she was no longer hyperventilating. She needed to be in the clearest mindset possible when doing the impossible.

She took a step forward. Then another.

Until she was standing in Uncle's doorway.

He didn't notice her, at first. He was too busy focusing on his whirlwind of packing, flying around his room like a tornado. In fact, maybe he wouldn't have noticed her at all if she hadn't called out to him.

"Hi, Uncle."

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HAVEN: AHHHHH here it is! the final stretch of act one, and cecelia's redemption arc!! i'm so excited for the next few chapters, they're some of my favourites and set up things for infinity war (aka, there may be tony content coming soon!). i hope you are, too!

anyway, i hope you don't mind that i decided to go a different route for the final battle. cecelia's fight with her uncle is going to be far more low-key than peter's fight with toomes, but i thought it worked better for cecelia's story and her recovery from abuse. she still is a superhero, though, so don't worry about that :)

thanks for reading!