"Make yourself at home kid, you're gonna be here for a while."

J.D groaned and threw herself back onto her pillow. "The results came back in?"

"What do they say?" Mason asked, his eyes wide in panic. "Is she gonna be okay?"

"Well, her abilities have already served her pretty well, and she has a huge chance of recovering, but for now, she's temporarily paraplegic. I can explain it to you all some other time, but we need to figure out some kind of living arrangement for J.D here." Tony said, before looking at Mason. "You can stay here as well if you want."

"I'll think about it." Mason responded. "Our Uncle's in D.C at the moment, so he wouldn't know."

"Herb's in D.C?" J.D asked, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Yeah, you'd know that, but you were being all heroic." Mason quipped, and his twin rolled her eyes. Mason then turned his gaze to Tony. "I mean, I'll probably end up being here anyway, I'm scared of being by myself at night."

"Loser." J.D muttered, before moving and groaning in pain.

"Karma's a bitch." Mason grumbled under his breath, before smiling at his sister. "I'd rather stay with my gorgeous sister, wouldn't that be nice?"

"It'd be great." J.D responded just as cheerily, though she grimaced after she said it.

"Enjoying the enthusiasm between you two, genuinely." Tony remarked. "But I wanna know who's staying where. Peter, you're going home, don't bother arguing."

"But-" Peter stepped forward, and Tony held his hand up to silence him.

"Shut up." The middle-aged man snapped. "Mason, you can share with your sister or get your own room, but there's probably gonna be a couple of nurses in the room every couple of hours to help her out every night. If you want sleep, you can stay at home or take up the guest room. I'll hook up some tech in Wanda's room for J.D to stay in so it's somewhere sort of familiar. There's pictures of Speedy in there too."

"Speedy?" Peter rose an eyebrow, and Tony scoffed.

"Don't even get me started on that guy." The billionaire replied, before looking down at his screen and sighing in annoyance. "You kids need something happy with all this shit going on. I'll get someone to bring cake. Peter, go home, you've drunk all my coffee and eaten all my apples."

Rolling his eyes, Peter reached down to pick up his overnight bag. He walked over to J.D's side, pressing a kiss to her forehead, then smacking the back of Mason's head. "Bye guys."

"See ya, Pete." J.D called, before snickering at Mason, who was rubbing the back of his head in pain.

Tony rose an eyebrow at the twins, before clearing his throat. "J.D, I'm gonna need you to bring your files from your experimentation in when you can. I'm assuming you have them."

Mason glanced at J.D in surprise, and she avoided his gaze, suddenly quiet. She nodded at Tony's comment, and the billionaire spun on his heel, walking out.

The twins were silent for a while, and J.D was starting to drift off. Mason was thinking deeply, his mood dropping quicker and quicker by the second.

It annoyed him, that she wouldn't tell the truth. It had been a year since the incident, and she hadn't uttered a word to him. He was her other half, but now it didn't seem like it. He was sick of all the secrets being kept from him, he was through with all of the lies he had been fed. Though he had mentioned before it didn't matter, he knew that it really did. He didn't care if it was to 'keep him safe' or some other stupid shit like that. He felt like he had the right to know.

"Where did you go last summer?" He finally broke the silence, and J.D twisted her head to look at him, her breathing growing heavy. Flickering his eyes up nervously, Mason forced a tear back as he stared at his sister. When she didn't say anything, he choked back a cry. "Please. I need to know."

J.D felt her hands tremble as red clouded her vision. She didn't know why she was getting angry, she blamed it on the fact she was on edge and constantly breathless. "No, you don't."

"Why won't you trust me?" Mason croaked, wringing his hands together. "I'm your brother."

"I don't want to tell you." She whispered. Mason scoffed.

"But you told Stark? Michelle? I bet you told Peter as well." He sneered, trying to avoid bursting into tears. "I can't believe you'd rather tell them instead of me."

"Michelle?" J.D's eyebrows furrowed, trying to force out another lie. It had become natural for her to make excuses, she had become blinded with the fact that people wouldn't get hurt if she used false information. "I didn't tell her anything. I didn't say anything to any of them."

"Please," chortled Mason. "Michelle's the one who told me your identity. If it wasn't for her, I'd never have found out."

J.D could barely process his sentence. Michelle had betrayed her trust and told someone. J.D didn't know if she was grateful or livid with her friend. "She had no right."

"You still told her." Mason grumbled. J.D flashed him a glare, which he returned. "I can't believe I came to visit, you don't seem to care anyway. I thought you'd want to see me, but I'd be better off at home."

"Of course I care." J.D tried to reason, but Mason was having none of it.

"I heard about that Speedy guy from Stark." He spoke softly. "Said his name was Pietro or something. He said that he was like your brother when you were kidnapped. I've seen him on your bedside table, I know who he is. Seems like you loved him more than me."

"Is that what this is about?" J.D felt tears prick at her eyes.

"Would you rather he came and talked to you instead of me?" A tear fell down Mason's flaming red cheek. When J.D looked down, clearly hurt, the teen boy scoffed. "See you at home, bladerunner."

J.D rubbed furiously at her eyes, causing them to become bloodshot and sore. "Mason-"

"Don't talk to me."

"Pietro's dead." She called out, her voice cracking as she spoke. Mason froze as he reached for the door handle. Knowing he was instantly feeling guilty, J.D decided to continue. "He's been dead since last year. You've probably heard of him, he went by the name Quicksilver."

Mason turned around to see his sister playing with her fingers on top of the white sheet. Tears fell from her eyes and hit the thin material, and she didn't make a move to wipe them away.

"I get why you want to know, but I don't want to remember it anymore." She said. "I see that place every time I close my eyes. I see the cell, the faces, the weapons. I know you don't like who I've become, but we both have to deal with it. You don't seem to understand all the shit I've been through, Mason. You think your math tests are the worst thing ever, you don't think I have it that hard. I do. All I had in Sokovia was Pietro and Wanda. They were the two people who kept me alive, who gave me a reason to keep going."

Mason looked down at the ground, folding his arms and trying to force himself not to cry. "I'm sorry...I...I didn't know."

"Imagine being stuck inside a dark building for two months with no outside contact." She finally looked over at him, and he glanced up at her. "Imagine thinking about your sibling and uncle whenever someone struck you with a knife or shot you with a gun, wondering if you'd ever get to see them again. All I wanted in that cell was to hear your voice, to listen to Herb's laugh. All I knew when we got out was that when I got back, I couldn't say anything to anyone, because one day he'd probably be back, and if he knew that I had family and friends, he'd hurt them as well."

Mason felt guilt weighing him down. He felt so bad now, all the rage had left his body and now he just wanted to cry and cuddle his sister. "I'm so sorry."

J.D shuffled over in her bed and patted her side. "I know."

Mason climbed onto the bed and carefully wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. "I love you."

J.D leaned into him and sighed. "I love you too."

TEN MONTHS EARLIER

J.D limped through the hallway of the apartment building, blowing her hair out of her eyes and cuddling the item she held closer to her body.

The only light was a dim bulb every couple of metres, illuminating her shiny face with a grimy yellow glow.

She had been back in New York for a few hours, and in that time she had done things she would never had done before. She had stolen clothing from the department store near school, taken food from the supermarket and snuck into the bathrooms to wash her face of dirt and blood.

As she trudged through the quiet hallways, she tried to force a smile onto her face, as much as it hurt. The plastic she held crinkled as she held it tightly, trying to pretend the pain wasn't there. She was trying to ignore the searing heat all over her arms, stomach and legs. She hadn't walked this much in nearly two months and she was beginning to feel numb.

She pulled her unused bruised hand from her pocket and clenched it in a loose fist; it was all she could manage. Taking a deep breath, she reached forward and rapped on the door, though she wasn't able to do it too loudly.

She felt dizzy, tired. She just wanted to take a shower a sleep a night in her own bed.

MASON HEARD THE DOOR as it was knocked on, and he sat up on the couch, rubbing his eyes. He had almost fallen asleep again, and he was actually looking forward to getting some shut-eye, as he hadn't gotten much over the past couple of months. It was late, far too late for anyone to be visiting. It could have been Peter with more comfort food, he was known to show up at random times bearing chocolate and pizza.

He groaned slightly as he pushed himself up from the comfortable piece of furniture, rubbing his back as he walked to the door with a sullen expression adorning his face. He had a bag of chips in hand, he was pretty sure he was cuddling them at one point during the night.

He reached for the handle and opened the door, coming face to face with someone he hadn't seen in a long time. At first he was blank as his mind processed what was happening, then he dropped his chips. "Holy shit."

"Hey." J.D forced a pained smile, before holding up the object she had been carrying for over half an hour. "I brought you some sour skittles."

Mason swung the door open and grabbed J.D by the shoulders, pulling her into a tight embrace. She grunted in pain, but tried to force it away.

She felt safety around her, she felt secure being with her brother in her home again.

She was free.

"What happened? Where were you? What did they do to you? Who had you?" Mason bombarded her with questions, his phone in hand as he tried to contact Herb, who was working late. "You need to get to the hospital. I need to call nine-one-one."

"No, you don't." J.D wheezed, pushing past him and into her room. She felt relief wash over her at the sight of her perfectly made bed in front of her.

"Yes, I do." Mason exclaimed. "You've been gone two months! We all thought you were dead!"

J.D turned around to see Mason in tears. She took a step forward and reached for his hand. Sighing softly and placing a hand to her aching stomach, she swallowed. "I'll go to the hospital tomorrow, I just want to take a shower and sleep."

Mason went to protest, but after taking another look at his sister's bruised face, hands and ankles, he shut his mouth and nodded once. "I'm holding you to that."

J.D smiled. "I was counting on it."

Mason stood at the doorway for another second, before walking over and pulling her into another hug. "I missed you."

J.D released a breath into his shoulder. "I missed you too."

aw sad happy cute whatever

lmao the bit in the hospital where they were arguing was written like two months ago yike

hope y'all enjoyed even tho it was pretty shit

ALSO THIS BOOK HIT 18K HOLY SHITTTTTTTTTT

this is literally the only book of mine that I'm super proud of so yAYYY

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