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chapter two
THIS IS A ROBBERY
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THE NIGHT IS PEACEFUL, with the sound of clinking cutlery on ceramic plates filling the Rivera family's small dining area. Lena has always appreciated her parents' phenomenal cooking skills— especially when it comes to traditional Filipino food. Tonight is no exception. She'd helped Ma cook one of Pa's favorite dishes, Filipino spaghetti, for his birthday, complete with a thick rice soup called arroz caldo and Ma's signature bibingka for dessert.

Pa can barely stop smiling long enough to eat his meal. It's contagious, making Lena have to cover her mouth as noodles threaten to escape. She's glad to see him so happy— his time spent alone had put a damper on his mood. Most of the time, he'll try to put on a happy face for them, but she knows her father. There's a part of him that will always remember that overwhelming sense of loss that he had to deal with for five years.

Ma shares the infectious joy and grins endearingly at her husband. "What is it, John?"

Pa sets down his fork and sighs. The action ages him, reminding Lena yet again that he's older than he'd been before the snap, and today marks another year where the gray in his hair will continue to spread and the lines in his face will deepen. She tries to hide her sadness with an encouraging pat on his shoulder.

"I've spent the last five birthdays alone," he begins, a shadow passing over his face. "Year after year, I sat in this very spot in an otherwise empty and silent apartment, wishing you two would walk through the front door. And after last year... I doubted if that would ever happen." His brown eyes go watery. "Now you're here."

Lena's heart pinches. She scoots her chair to the side until she's close enough to him where she can rest her head on his shoulder. Automatically, his hand reaches up to rest on her arm as his chest shudders with the overwhelming effort it takes for him not to cry.

"Nothing like that should happen again," Lena says gently.

Pa squeezes her arm again, almost as if he's trying to reassure himself that she's really there. "Can you promise me that?"

She's stumped. She knows she can't— ever since superheroes were introduced into their world, nothing has been normal. And that dates all the way back to when Steve received the Super Soldier Serum in the '40s. As long as people like her continue to exist, nothing will ever be normal.

Or maybe this is their new normal.

The television volume is low enough to not disturb their dinner, but for the first time since they began their meal, the news anchor's voice punctures Lena's bubble of peace.

"A memorial statue is being designed to honor the fallen or retired heroes of the Avengers. Among those depicted in the sculpture will be Natasha Romanoff, Vision, Steve Rogers, and Tony Stark. While it's still in production, it will be placed—"

The anchor's voice cuts off as Ma presses the button on the remote to turn the television off. Now, faced with real silence, Lena hears nothing but the crackling of static as the screen goes dark and the distant wall of sirens that always seems to occur in Queens. All of the once-delicious food in her stomach goes sour as she pulls away from Pa and sits upright in her chair.

Her parents calculate her blank expression carefully. Seconds of silence stretch on and on until Lena can't take it anymore, her chest becoming so tight that it feels like her ribs will break and puncture a lung. An ache blossoms in her jaw from how harshly she's been clenching it.

"I need air," Lena announces before excusing herself from the table, feeling as if she's just ruined something special. The sensation prickles at the back of her neck as she heads to her bedroom and heaves the window open. A slight summer breeze rifles her hair. She breathes out a small sigh of relief as clean oxygen enters her lungs.

She places her hands on the windowsill and glances at the small plants that are gathered there. They're practically dead, once-vibrant leaves turned brown and withered with time. They'd been in perfect condition before the snap seized her. Pa hadn't been able to bring himself to throw them away, and maybe Lena had felt the same. Now she moves them to the side to be disposed of later.

Lena rubs at her arms as goosebumps prickle her flesh. Queens is humid, but she feels cold, like there's ice buried beneath her skin. Part of her wants to grab a blanket even though she knows it won't do any good. When this happens, it's like she could spend hours searching for the perfect blanket, but nothing can make the chill in her bones subside.

The floorboards squeak behind her. She jumps and instinctively lets energy pool into her palm, whirling around with a furious glare. It drops instantly, the energy evaporating when she realizes it's just Pa moving to sit on her mattress.

"Cold?" he questions upon noticing how she immediately returns her hands to her arms. Her red and white striped t-shirt does nothing to insulate her body, so the breeze drifting inside her room goes straight through her clothing.

Knowing she can't lie to her father, she nods.

"That's how I felt," Pa says sympathetically. "So cold. Like I could put on every coat I owned and still feel the chill. Is that what it's like right now?"

Lena nods again, knowing she could help the problem by moving away from the window, but the air truly is helping to quell her panic. She leans against her windowsill while still hugging her arms.

"I'll admit I'm not sure how to help you," Pa continues. "I'm human. I know nothing about the specifics of the Avengers— you know I tuned them out after what happened to Sal in the Battle of New York. And I wasn't there for you when you witnessed so much death and destruction." He pauses, reeling in his emotions, but failing as his voice wobbles. "The best I can do is be here for you now. So I am."

Lena blinks away the tears gathering in her eyes and releases a slow breath to ease the painful lump in her throat. "I only knew Tony for a year and a half, but he made such an impact on me. I think he made one on every single person he met. His personality was big enough to fill an entire room. And now that he's gone... it feels like the world is emptier. Like a person just ripped out a chunk of it and left us to adapt.

"And Natasha. I didn't even get to tell her thank you. For— for being the superhero role model I needed when I was a little girl, trying to figure out my powers. I came back and she was just gone."

Lena presses her hand to her mouth, body trembling with the force it takes not to cry, but eventually caving and letting a tear slip out. It's hot as it runs down her cheek and into the spaces between her fingers. Her chest aches, a chasm that she isn't sure will ever mend into one piece again. That battle had taken something from her.

"I'm sorry," she says, tripping over her words a bit. "I shouldn't be crying on your birthday. You should be eating with us."

Pa's face softens, a flicker of sadness dimming his eyes for a moment at the fact that she feels like she has to say that. "Never apologize for your emotions. It means they're working. It means you're human."

She manages to huff a laugh. "I'm not human, Pa."

"You know what I meant," he replies teasingly, standing up and crossing the floor to where she stands in front of her window. He opens his mouth as if to continue. However, before he can, something outside catches his eye. "Look out there. You mean so much to people."

Lena turns around even though she already knows what he's looking at. She's passed the mural every day, sometimes taking the time to admire it and sometimes finding it too difficult to look at. Someone had painted it on the side of an apartment building. Spider-Man is at the top, one hand hanging onto a web that hangs down from the top of the painting, mid-swing and hand out to shoot another web. At the bottom right is Specter swirling from the shadows, face practically invisible except for the dark smirk crossing his face. And at the bottom left is Havoc. Her hands are at her sides, face set in grim determination as two bursts of energy swirl from her palms. At the center of the triangle they form is the single word Heroes. Then, across the bottom: We miss you.

She'd cried the first time she'd seen the tribute, then pulled out her phone and sent a photo to Peter and Graham. The crime rates had skyrocketed when half of the universe winked out of existence. With all three of Queens' local superheroes gone and the police attempting to re-organize themselves, people had taken advantage of the distraction. She's pleased to say the three of them have managed to keep things fairly under control since their return.

"If you need to go out and do your thing, I won't be upset." Pa places a comforting and steady hand on her shoulder. "I meant what I said— you and your mother returning was all I needed for my birthday, but I also need you to take care of yourself."

Lena turns around and examines the shadows beneath his eyes. "I will if you do."

Pa smiles sadly. "Fair enough. Now, if you feel better, we should help your mother with the dishes before she explodes in worry."

She nods with a tiny huff of a laugh for his half-joke. Together, they return to the kitchen, where Ma has tried to mend the tense atmosphere with one of Lena's Beach Boys records.

When she finishes and comes back to her room, her phone buzzes in the back pocket of her black shorts. She digs it out to see a text from Peter lighting up the screen in their chat called the three musketeers.

PETER PARKOUR: Guys, if you get a call from an unknown number, DO NOT answer it!!!

LEE: why?

PETER PARKOUR: It's Nick Fury

As if on cue, Lena's phone begins to buzz as an incoming call takes over her screen. The number is blocked, showing only the word Unknown. Her blood seems to freeze in her veins as she stares at the phone in her hand.

Nick Fury. The man who'd rescued her from the police after the catastrophic incident at her parents' lab, taken her into SHIELD custody, injected her with a serum that would hide her powers until she was five years old, and then put her up for adoption in an area that would be monitored by SHIELD agents— aka the neighbors she'd once thought were normal. He's calling her. For some reason, this feels like her past has caught up with her.

The call goes to voicemail. She's still staring at the screen without blinking, noticing that several texts from both Graham and Peter had come through during the call.

GRAHAM CRACKER: why would the former director of SHIELD be calling us? aren't we a little... below his clearance level?

PETER PARKOUR: I have no idea, Happy Hogan just told me he wants to talk to us

GRAHAM CRACKER: but i don't wanna talk to him

PETER PARKOUR: Neither do I

LEE: guys, he just called me

GRAHAM CRACKER: oh shit i'm next

GRAHAM CRACKER: wait i don't answer any calls from unknown numbers anyway so i'm fine

GRAHAM CRACKER: MY PHONE STARTED BUZZING WITH A CALL FROM AN UNKNOWN NUMBER AND I PANICKED AND SMACKED THE DECLINE BUTTON SO FAST I JAMMED MY FINGER

LEE: "i'm fine" graham says

PETER PARKOUR: Robbery at Flushing Bank on Northern Blvd

LEE: that was a swift change of subject

PETER PARKOUR: ROBBERY

GRAHAM CRACKER: count me in

LEE: let's do it

Lena ducks out of the view of her window and yanks her shirt off, pressing the button that activates the nanotechnology in her suit. Silver fabric spreads from the center of her chest to the rest of her body. It conforms perfectly to her, as light as if she's wearing a second layer of skin. It takes her mere seconds to secure her mask to her face and get her platinum blonde wig on her head. After this long, she's gotten good at suiting up quickly.

"Ma, Pa, I'm going to stop a bank robbery!" Lena calls to her parents through her bedroom door.

"Be safe and don't stay out too late!" Ma yells back.

Lena knows that, even though they sound enthusiastic, Ma and Pa worry sick about her every time she goes out in the field. They'd tried to establish a curfew at first. Once they realized they couldn't control the time of day that crime occurs, they'd dropped it. They compensate by making her spend a minimum of two hours a day doing her homework in her room, but now that summer is here, she isn't sure what's going to happen.

She jumps out of her window and uses her energy to blast her away from her apartment building. Tiny glass lenses slide over the eye slots in her mask to protect them from the harsh wind— a slight modification she'd made to Tony's original design. At first, she'd protected herself with a bubble of energy, but this way is much less conspicuous than a giant blue orb flying through the air.

Her feet land lightly on the roof of the building beside Flushing Bank. After shaking the plastic hair strands from her face, she can see that Peter is already waiting, crouched low so he can observe the scene without being spotted. He jumps at the sound of her footsteps, arm raised to shoot a web, but relaxes when he notices it's just her.

"Hey," he greets, voice a pitch higher than normal.

"Hey," she says back. "You okay?"

Peter clears his throat. "Fine, why?"

"It's just — I thought — never mind."

Lena isn't sure that pointing out his obvious panic is a good idea right now. She knows that his voice gets higher when he's nervous, but he's usually not afraid before stopping a crime. That means that it's something that happened beforehand that's bothering him.

She joins his side and mimics his crouched position. "What do you see?"

The eyes of his mask squint as he surveys what her regular eyesight cannot pick up. "Six guys, all wearing some bulky clothes and carrying guns. Your usual bank robbery."

"But how did they get in?" Lena questions.

Graham materializes beside her, making her nearly squeak in surprise before she manages to stop herself. "One of the guys cut a power line and caused the cameras to short out. Then they blew a hole through the wall on the other side and walked in. Seriously, guys, what's taking you so long? I already have the entire place checked out."

Lena rolls her eyes and smacks him on the shoulder. "We get it. You're so great."

"Well, if you two weren't spending quality time with each other up here, we'd already be inside."

Lena involuntarily glances at Peter, forgetting that his expression is completely obscured by his mask. Her cheeks burn brightly at Graham's comment. Luckily, the cover of darkness helps her by neutralizing any color on her face.

She flicks her voice changer on and hears Graham do the same. His voice comes out distorted and deep when he asks, "Ready?"

"Yeah," Peter replies, and Lena notices that he's back to the high-pitched tone again.

He grips onto her arm as she hooks hers through Graham's to form a chain. Without warning, Graham pulls them into the shadows, which lasts only a second since they're so close to their destination. They emerge on the other side to find themselves inside of a bank smothered in darkness. The robbers don't even risk carrying flashlights— instead, they wear some sort of weird night-vision goggles. Three men are busying themselves with stuffing their bags with loot while the remaining half stand watch.

Lena arches an eyebrow. All of them in one place, packed tightly in like that? Amateurs.

Graham taps on Peter's and Lena's shoulders as a signal that he'll make the first move. His face settles into an expression of determination, his already brown eyes seeming to turn even darker. He shudders. Then, just as one of the guard's eyes start to turn toward them, the man starts screaming.

The sound is always terrible. It's the bone-chilling screeches of a man who's facing his worst nightmare — because he is — and he can't do anything about it because it's trapped inside of his head. There's nowhere to run. Nowhere to beat the image out of his brain. His comrades panic as he drops to his knees, gun clattering to the ground so he can hold his head.

"Erwin!" one of the other men cries. "What's wrong? Erwin!"

Graham blinks out of existence and pops out of the shadows behind the fallen man. It takes the other two guards a moment for their eyes to adjust, giving him just enough time to place a swift kick to the man's back and send him sprawling onto his stomach.

"Gentleman," Graham greets, body covered in shadows so he barely looks like a concrete figure.

"It's the ghost!" the man who'd spoken earlier cries, firing shots at Graham that he easily dodges by melting back into the darkness. He gives a strained yell as Graham materializes behind him and twists his free arm behind his back.

"I'm disappointed. I thought you'd know by now— my name is Specter."

Peter thwips out a web and connects it to the third man's gun, easily yanking it out of his hands. The now-unarmed guard watches his weapon fly into the darkness. Peter leaps out of its cover with his spider legs activated, pinning the guy to the ground and working on tying him up as he struggles.

One of the looters emerges from the vault to see what the commotion is all about. As soon as he surveys the scene, eyes widening in realization and hand drifting to the gun in his belt, Lena straightens her arms and blasts him with a stream of energy. The man flies back until he smacks into the brick wall with a grunt.

Lena glances at the boys to make sure they have the guards handled. Peter almost has the man completely cocooned in webs, while Graham uses his martial arts skills to take down his guy. He reaches forward and pulls the night vision goggles back, letting them snap against the opponent's face so he cries out. The third guy — Erwin — is still screaming and writhing on the floor from his living nightmare.

Yeah, they definitely have that handled.

The man she'd blasted into the wall is still recovering. She leisurely steps over his crumpled figure and enters the vault, finding two men shoving wads of jewelry and cash into their bags like there's no tomorrow. One of them raises his gun as soon as she crosses the threshold of the door. He wastes no time in firing a bullet that merely bounces off of the force field she constructs with the blink of her eye.

"Oh great, it's the girl," the man with the money grumbles.

Lena creases her brows at his unbothered tone. Let him see what this girl can do. 

She opens her palm and streams a jet of energy at the gunman, melting every bullet he fires and knocking him back. The other man grabs his gun, but Lena marches forward and shoves it to the side with a small burst of energy so it fires at the floor instead. It takes her a moment to remember what Graham had taught her. The man sees her hesitation as a weakness. A smirk crosses his face, triumph clear in it like she's just proved to him how useless she is.

Lena grabs onto the barrel of the handgun with one hand and the handle with the other, forcing the man's wrist to rotate in a way that it shouldn't. The goggles hiding his eyes mask the fear that flickers across his face as she forces him to release the weapon. Now she's the one holding the gun.

Instead of revealing that she doesn't know how to use it, she distracts him with a right hook that snaps his jaw back and tosses the gun far away. Her foot swipes under his feet. As he falls, she strikes him with a blast of her power that sends him smacking into the ground much harder.

"This girl just kicked your a—"

Lena cuts herself off as a hand snatches her by the waist, pulling her flush up against a muscled body. Her heart skips a beat when she feels the barrel of a gun pressed to her temple. Before she can think of a plan that involves her not getting her brain shot out, the person yanks her across the vault and into the corridor where Graham and Peter are still working on the three others. She notices that the man whom she'd thrown into the wall is absent. Dammit. How could she have forgotten about him?

"Even a twitch of muscle and you're dead," the man snarls into her ear, flushing her veins with terror that makes her limbs go heavy. He addresses her friends next. "Throw another punch and the girl dies!"

Graham and Peter freeze in perfect synchronization. They slowly turn to face her, the eyes of Peter's mask going wide and Graham turning still as death, face contorting into an expression of frozen rage.

Lena scrambles to sort out her options. First, she should let the man talk. Allow him to think she's utterly at his mercy. If he wanted her dead right away, he would have killed her by now, but it's clear she's going to be used as bait.

Sure enough, she feels the man nod to his still-screaming friend. "Make it stop."

Graham blinks and Erwin snaps out of his nightmare. The sharp tang of urine fills the air as the man wets himself in fear of what he'd seen, breathing ragged and voice hoarse as he continues to lie on the floor.

"Now, listen to me carefully. You're going to—"

Lena interrupts him with a force field that bursts from her without a movement of her muscles, throwing him back until he hits the wall once more with a crack that makes her cringe. She turns around and storms closer without waiting for him to recover this time. A stop of her boot on his wrist has him involuntarily opening his fingers. Kicking the gun away, she tilts her head to the side and questions, "Going to what, again?"

Graham ducks into the shadows to make sure the other guys aren't going to pull any more surprises. Peter wastes no time in wrapping the other men up in webs. As he comes toward her to deal with the man at her feet, he stops in front of her and places both hands on her arms.

"Hey, you alright?" he asks. Although she can't see exactly where his eyes are looking, she can feel him assessing the way her breathing is shallow in her lungs, how her eyebrows are pinched, and that she keeps shifting from foot to foot.

"Fine," she replies. When he ducks his head knowingly, she nods. "I'll be okay."

Peter tugs her into a brief hug before securing the robber near them with webs. Lena steps out of the way, feeling the adrenaline from the fight draining from her body and leaving her exhausted.

"Those guys are unarmed and unconscious," Graham announces as he steps out of the vault. "I made sure of it."

But it's as if his words are being said as an afterthought, because he heads for Lena in a straight beeline. The force of his hug is nearly enough to knock the air from her chest. She secures her arms around him, recalling the expression on his face as he'd seen her with the gun to her head— like he'd drive that man into madness with his nightmares in order to keep her safe. But he'd waited because a piece of him had known she wasn't helpless.

"I felt your fear," he whispers. "It was terrible."

"I'm okay," she assures him, breath hitching on the words until he pulls away.

"That's a wrap," Peter says from behind Graham. "Literally, because all six of them are wrapped in webs. And, anyway, the police are gonna be here in five, four, three, two..."

"Police!" a woman's voice shouts from the direction of the hole in the wall. "Hands in the air! Don't move!"

The three teenagers stand completely still as they watch the officers file into the bank. Their flashlights sweep across the knocked-out men cocooned in Peter's webs, mouths dropping in slight surprise until their lights sweep across the heroes.

"You're late," Graham says blankly.

The woman who'd spoken earlier talks into the walkie-talkie on her chest. "Stand down. Spider-Man, Havoc, and Specter already got this one." She looks up with a sigh. "I don't suppose any of you will be staying to answer some questions?"

"Nope," Peter replies, checking an invisible watch. "Look at the time, officer! It's late! We'd best get going."

The officers merely watch as they pick across the bodies and head toward the shadow they'd entered through— the darkest one in the corridor. However, one of the men stops Lena short with an, "Excuse me, Havoc?"

All three of them pause. Lena turns toward the man: an officer who looks to be in his late-forties to early-fifties. He digs around in his pocket until he produces a small square of folded-up paper and hands it to her.

"My daughter— she's a big fan," he explains. "She drew these for you. I've been carrying them around on duty in case I ever ran into you."

Lena takes the paper and gives him a grateful smile. "Thank you, sir. Tell your daughter I really appreciate it."

She joins the boys in the shadow and forms their usual chain. In the next breath, they're back on the roof of the opposite building, and Lena wastes no time in unfolding the paper. She discovers that it's actually two separate drawings that had been folded together to make one square. The one on top is of her flying through the air using her jets of energy, a smile on her face as she soars over the tops of the skyscrapers around her. Lena is impressed. The drawing is insanely good, and she can't help but be bewildered that the girl had actually taken the time to draw this.

The girl had signed her name at the top, along with a message.

Dear Havoc,
Thank you for keeping us safe. I'm really glad you're back!
—Diana

Lena grins. But when she flips to the next drawing, her heart jolts in her chest.

It's a drawing of her and Peter— or, technically, Havoc and Spider-Man. She's flying alongside him as he swings, both of them smiling at each other. Lena can tell that Spider-Man's expression is supposed to be mirroring Havoc's because the eyes of his mask are squinted with joy.

Scrawled on the top is another message.

Hope this isn't weird. A lot of people at my school think you'd be cute together!
—Diana

Lena's cheeks flush. It doesn't help that Peter asks, "What did he give you?" and peers over her shoulder to look at the drawing. After a moment, he clears his throat. "Oh, wow. Th—That's pretty cool."

His voice is an octave higher than normal.

Graham stifles his laughter at Peter's reaction with a cough, covering his smirking mouth with his fist. Lena glares. He makes a heart with his hands while Peter isn't looking. She sticks her tongue out at him.

Though, if one thing's for sure, Pa was right. In one way or another, she does mean something to people.

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a/n:

i have a list of random cute parkos things in my notes, and lena receiving spideyvoc fanart was one of them, so i decided to include it here because their flustered reactions are so cute.

i was disappointed that the fight from the trailer wasn't in far from home, so here is my modified version of it. i'm glad i finally got to show graham in a fight! i live for the idea of him popping out of the shadows at random moments and scaring his opponents.

(headcanon where paranormal investigators visit supposedly 'haunted' areas of queens where the voice of a colonial boy can be heard singing but it's just graham fucking around with them)

the next chapter will incorporate more actual far from home scenes! i wanted to include this so it isn't as rushed as the beginning of the movie was. please let me know what you thought of this fight scene! it was the first one i had to write in this series that was totally my own.

— kristyn