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chapter four
IT COMES BACK
TO HAUNT YOU
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THE DAILY BUGLE

July 21, 2002

CATASTROPHIC EXPLOSION IN ABANDONED BUILDING REMAINS MYSTERY

By Ben Urich

This past weekend on July 18, an unexplained explosion occurred in a seemingly abandoned building and completely leveled the entire structure. The New York City Fire Department has been excavating the scene for days. They still cannot determine the source.

EVERY WORD FROM THE file had long ago been burned into Lena's brain, becoming so familiar that she can probably recite it in her sleep. Even so, her eyes scan the first page of her copy without truly absorbing the text. Not only had the DODC confiscated the original documents, but they'd also scanned multiple copies, three of which are placed on the table she sits at. One is in front of her, touched only once. Matt Murdock's is arranged in neat piles. Finally, Agent Cleary's is scattered across the opposite end of the surface, while the man himself stands with his hands on his hips.

It aches to see it this way. Gone is every personal touch from Tony. Instead, they'd scanned each of the handwritten annotations that he'd attached with paper clips. She flips to the last page— the one where a slightly wrinkled sticky note should be with Tony's handwriting asking, Fury, how do you only have one eye but manage to have eyes everywhere? Instead of the slight gleam of the Sharpie that had withstood the years since he'd delivered the file to her, she only sees the slightly-skewed message since whoever had scanned the file had done a shit job of it.

"Agent Cleary, I'm sure that you and I can both agree that my client's past has nothing to do with the charges against her," Mr. Murdock says. His copy had been translated to braille for him, and Lena catches his finger running over a particular series of bumps at the top of the first page. Her eyes flicker to the text to guess what it could be; the only thing that remotely matches is the author of the first article. Ben Urich. Does Mr. Murdock know him? She'd never investigated the journalists who'd written these, but now she thinks that it probably would've been a good idea.

"That is true, Mr. Murdock," Agent Cleary confirms, allowing Lena to relax a little. "However" — she tenses right back up again — "there is the matter of illegal human experimentation."

"Which my client was a victim of." Her lawyer's voice is hard, carrying nothing but smooth steel around the edges that hit their mark true. "You can't possibly charge her for crimes that her biological parents committed on her and her late brother. You'd have to arrest the skeletal remnants found in the rubble of their lab."

Lena sucks in a sharp breath. There had been skeletal remains of her parents? Tony hadn't included that in the file— maybe he'd thought it was too much for her to hear at the time. But still, learning about it all these years later doesn't make the shock any worse.

She doesn't know exactly what happened in the lab to cause their demises. Nobody does. All that was reported was an explosion that had nearly leveled the building, destroying everything but leaving her untouched. Her powers can involve intense heat. Had she accidentally sent out a blast that had killed her parents? Melted straight through their skin, leaving nothing but charred bones? The thought makes her stomach churn.

Her parents were horrible people, but she's never killed a human person before. The realization that maybe she has makes her unstable energy rise to the surface of her skin. She fidgets, ignoring the sweat breaking out under her bangs as she forces herself to remain still.

"And she was an infant," Mr. Murdock continues. "She couldn't consent to what was happening to her. As Miss Page said in her article from 2015, the crime rates dropped after Spider-Man and Havoc started their work. Whatever my client's parents intended her powers to be used for, she decided to use them for good."

The expression on Agent Cleary's bearded face appears to say, Up until now.

Lena wets her lips, which feel like they've been stuck together with glue. Her voice is uncharacteristically quiet when she asks, "Will this information be released to the public?"

"No," Mr. Murdock assures her. "They can't release the information— it isn't related to your charges."

Her skin crawls when she thinks of all the other things they may have found in her apartment. The file had been under her mattress. Did they go through each of her dresser drawers? Her poetry journal? The box in the back of her closet that contains her original Havoc suit and supplies? As far as she knows, the search warrant hadn't been for any specific area of the apartment— it's likely that nothing had been off-limits. She feels like she's been split open for the DODC to see, and she wants nothing more than to curl into herself and disappear.

Agent Cleary reaches into his carrier and produces a plastic evidence bag. It's clear, so Lena can see the familiar manila file in all of its original glory, causing her heart to leap and then pound in her chest. The special agent uses a gloved hand to open the bag and hand the file to her. Lena reaches out, feeling like she could cry at the weight of the file cover and the attachments within it. She hugs it to her chest, pressing Tony's words close to her heart, as if she could protect it from this horrible place.

"Be careful with that, Miss Santos," Agent Cleary advises. For once, he sounds agreeable; there's nothing in his expression that suggests his advice is backhanded. "If someone finds it and spreads the word, that's fair game, and won't be good for the court of public opinion."

Lena nods. It's not like she's going to go out handing pages like flyers on the street or something.

"If that's all, we'll be leaving," Mr. Murdock says, placing his cane to his left to use it as leverage for standing. He gathers his braille copies of the file and places them neatly into his briefcase while Agent Cleary retrieves the scanned versions. "Come on, Lena."

The special agent's words echo in her mind throughout the subway ride back to her apartment. If someone finds it and spreads the word, that's fair game. The public has already turned its back on her from a single video. What would happen if they learned about her parents? She wouldn't be able to show her face anywhere. Her dreams of attending Cornell and making a difference in the world would be flushed down the toilet. Not to mention that Ma, Pa, Peter, and Graham might receive backlash as well. It's not just her reputation at stake here— it's those of everyone she cares about.

Every racing thought has the file's presence in her backpack becoming more and more pressing until it feels like it's as hot as burning coals. Lena's restless leg bounces with reckless abandon as her mind spirals to the worst possible outcomes. She can't let this get any worse than it already is. Not if she can do something about it.

The underground train comes to a halt at the next station. This isn't Lena's stop, but she finds herself standing anyway, propelling herself to her feet with an abrupt sense of purpose. She swings her backpack over her shoulders and marches onto the platform without thinking. The only thing on her mind is go, go, go, go, a fervent chant that drowns out everything else around her. She doesn't see the indigo sky that marks twilight when she bounds up the stairs and onto the streets of Brooklyn. She doesn't feel when a distracted passerby knocks her in the shoulder and keeps moving without apologizing. Everything is a blur.

Lena keeps walking until she's away from the main part of the city. There are fewer people milling around as the colorful sky plunges into black. Her lungs slightly burn from how quickly she's been moving and how far she'd walked, but she continues on, gritting her teeth against a stitch in her side. The file remains a burning presence the entire time. It's a hefty weight dragging her down as he moves, trying to slow her down despite her persistent strides.

Finally, she finds an area without any possible witnesses and locates a garbage barrel surrounded by heaps of trash. She approaches it, so unaware of her surroundings that she steps on a zippo lighter and feels it skid on the pavement under her shoe. Lena picks it up, flicking her thumb against the flint wheel a few times until a spark almost burns her fingertip.

Moments later, she stands in front of the barrel with the file in one hand and the lighter in the other. The fire illuminates the beige cover that's slightly sprinkled with dust. Lena inhales sharply, the breath stabbing into her lungs like the point of a knife, and in the next second, touches the edge of the file to the dancing flame. Her teary eyes watch as the fire catches, purple against the paper and orange where the tips rise into the air, then eventually turns the paper a charred black. The edges curl and flake off into the barrel. She holds it until the flames lick dangerously close to her hand, then finally allows it to drop into the heap of garbage.

Her eyes stay glued to the remnants until the last piece of paper turns black. Then she grabs a half-full bottle of iced tea from somewhere on the ground and pours it over the pile of ashes, dousing the small blaze. The only piece intact is the slightly disfigured curve of a paperclip. Lena raises a trembling hand and sends a stream of blue energy at it, molting the metal until it breaks.

Lena doesn't allow herself to stay there and mourn the piece of Tony she'd just lost. She doesn't even allow herself to ponder what she'd just done and consider that she'll probably regret this in ten minutes. She merely turns and walks back the way she came, the image of the flickering flame burned into her eyes.

-♕-

Since their addresses have been leaked to the public, Happy advises the three families to move into his apartment.

There are several problems with this.

One, there are three families. Peter and May make up the smallest one, followed by Lena and her parents, and then the five Seagers. It makes eleven people total, five of which are teenagers.

Two, there's not nearly enough space. Happy's two-bedroom apartment is packed to the brim, making sleeping arrangements less than ideal. The man had decided to give May his room. That leaves Ma, Pa, and Graham's parents to sleep in the other one, with the kids in the living room. Happy had forced them to sleep in a place where he could keep an eye on them. His concern had warmed Lena's heart at first, but now she kinda wants to jump out the window just for some peace and quiet from his sleep apnea mask.

Lena is squished between the two boys. Peter is on her left, his arm wrapped around her waist and her head tucked into his chest as she tries to drown out the deafening sounds of Happy's oxygen machine with the sound of Peter's heartbeat. Each breath is loud enough to rival an earthquake. Even though Happy is tucked away on a recliner in the corner of the room, the distance doesn't help. She tries to stay calm; the man is letting them stay with him, after all.

That isn't to say that Lena hadn't tried to get them to hide somewhere else. She'd immediately offered to bring everyone to the lab Tony had left her, but Happy had vehemently disagreed. He'd argued, "If the press tracked you to your apartments, who's to say they won't track us there, too?" and had snuffed out any further discussions. She'd found herself complying instantly. After what she'd done to the file, the last thing she wants is to lose another part of Tony.

Graham lies on Lena's opposite side with his pillow curved up against his ears in an attempt to achieve peace. He takes up the most space on the air mattress, his feet nearly dangling off the edge due to his height. His eyebrows scrunch together in exasperation when it becomes obvious that it's going to be a long night.

Peter's thumb traces indistinct patterns on Lena's pajama-clad hip. She buries her face deeper into his chest, breathing in the scent of his cologne, fighting to shove her annoyance down.

"Can you guys stop being cute for like two seconds?" Graham mumbles. "I'm right here."

"It's not their fault you're single, Graham," Owen retorts from where he and Max are somehow crammed onto the sofa.

Graham opens his eyes, a crease still between his brows. "So are you."

"I call it 'dating myself.'"

"If that's what helps you sleep at night," Max scoffs.

"You're also single!"

"Yeah, because I'm stuck with your ugly face."

"Technically I'm stuck with your ugly face because you're two minutes older— ow!"

Owen's insult turns into a cry of pain when Max kicks him in the face. The way they're positioned on the sofa means each of their heads is on opposite ends with their feet near each other's faces. It's a recipe for disaster, but it's either that or the hardwood floor.

Owen continues, "Don't kick me. Your feet smell."

"Good." Max shoves his foot closer to his twin's face. "Breathe nice and deep."

Owen recoils so hard that he tumbles off the sofa, taking his blanket down with him and falling into a heap on the floor. Instead of climbing back up, he merely yanks his pillow from the couch with a laser-eyed glare at Max. He shifts around until he deems it comfortable enough for him to curl up away from the danger of foul-smelling, kicking feet.

Lena finds herself with a small grin on her face. The Seager brothers' arguments are something so familiar to her that it feels like old times. This could be late spring when they'd first come back from the snap, their identities still a secret and their biggest problem being how to survive the last month of school. But each loud sound from Happy's oxygen machine reminds her otherwise.

She feels Peter chuckle and tilts her head up to catch a glimpse of his smile. It was brief, but it's been so rare lately that she wants to soak in each fragment of happiness from him, no matter how slight. His joy warms a piece of her heart that's felt hollow since the Battle of the Avengers Compound. She shifts up and presses a light kiss to his jaw, laughing when he tries to look over at her and only accomplishes in having a triple chin.

"Gross," Graham groans, smacking both of them with his pillow. "New rule: stop doing couple things on this air mattress."

"You can switch places with Lena," Peter offers teasingly. "That way you won't be left out."

"Can I?"

Graham leans up on his elbows and reaches across Lena's head, running a hand through Peter's hair and almost shoving Lena's face into his armpit in the process.

"Oh, Peter, I love you," he swoons dramatically. Then, he presses an unnecessarily noisy kiss on Peter's forehead, making Lena laugh so hard she snorts. "You're so warm and cuddly!"

"Okay, get off of me," Peter says, pushing Graham back onto his side. Due to Graham leaning his weight toward them, the air mattress had started to sink further to the right, pressing the trio together like sardines.

"Admit it, you liked it," Graham shoots back as he nestles into his blanket.

"That was the most obscenely loud kiss I've ever heard," Owen pipes up. "Maybe that's why you're single."

"Shut up, Owen. This is why you're on the floor."

"Okay, wrap it up." Happy's sudden voice causes all of them to jump and look toward where he reclines in the corner. They'd thought he'd been asleep, but now he's glaring at them with his mask pulled away from his mouth. "I need my eight hours."

"Have you been listening this whole time?" Peter asks.

"Uh, not by choice."

Owen inquires, "Do you think I'm ugly?"

"No, whichever twin just asked me that. I don't think you're ugly. Now go to bed."

With that, the conversation comes to an end. It's one of the most lighthearted ones she's had in days, and it makes Lena fall asleep with a smile on her face.

________

a/n:

me the entire time while writing that conversation between the kids

matt on his way to fight whatever person is currently causing trouble for graham, peter, or lena:

there's going to be at least one more chapter of my own writing before we get into more of the actual movie's scenes. i still have some summer stuff planned before the school year begins!!

also one thing that confused me about NWH is that the "spider-man murdered mysterio" news was out for MONTHS before the spell. like are you telling me that NONE of the avengers tried to help clear his name??? they just saw the #1 news story in the world and were like "lol that sucks, anyway what's the weather?"

that isn't gonna work for how close lena is to bruce so idk what to do about that lmao. also samuel wilson would fly to new york in the middle of TFATWS just to beat j jonah jameson's ass and help lena so,,, 🤔 will have to figure that out

i hope you enjoyed this chapter and its mix of angst & lightheartedness. lena burning the file will definitely come back to haunt her (as the title suggests, along with her past coming back to bite her in the butt) and it will be interesting for that to tie into the story!

—kristyn