The Other Side of Balance

Mirror and Image

Balance.

That was what his children's book had said, the story his mother told him before…, well. Before. The Demon was held off with balance.

That book, that lesson, balance, was the only thing that kept him sane after… just After. He dedicated his life to understanding the Balance - positive and negative chi, taoists, philosophers, even positive and negative currents in electricity and molecular cell structure. If everything was made up of positive and negative forces, then what happened to him was a negative force of nuclear proportions - an apropo metaphor, since nuclear fusion was about splitting atoms of their charges. In order to maintain balance, and still remove Norman Osborn and make him understand what he did, then he would have to also create positivity.

His tragedy was not the negative chi. Osborn was. No amount of positive chi he created could cancel out the ongoing negative firestorm that was Norman Osborn, and the Demon could not, would not, be sated until the multi-billion dollar mayor was incapable of creating more negative chi. The demon was not the source of the negative chi, it was the result of the negative chi.

And, like in math, two negatives inherently make a positive when they are multiplied.

And divided.

Divide Osborn, divide the Demon, and positive remained.

Yes. That was the way.

And Li began his quest. He corrupted those around him, spreading his negative chi to match the overwhelming blast radius of Osborn's negativity.

That had taken time, of course. In this world money created positivity as much as negativity, and he needed the silly thing to actually accomplish anything, but once he had it he had looked around very carefully to determine where he could do the most good. Osborn had just been elected mayor, Li could not do anything to draw suspicion, so his positivity would have to be very specific: a homeless shelter. It was as good a place as any.

That was how FEAST was born, and it was his magnum opus. For ten years he built, cultivated, funded. He made partnerships with local businesses, he liaised with mental health and medical campuses, he bought out an old public school and converted the gymnasium. So much to do, so many people to help. He found mirrors of his childhood self - people who suffered tragedy after tragedy, unable to pick themselves up like he had, trying to self-sustain but missing some vital link. Those were hard days - seeing all of that negative energy brought out the demon. Sometimes it was all he could do to lock himself in his office, prostrate at the feet of hits parents' shrine, forcing himself to remember what he was doing, to focus on creating positive chi.

Gathering money, making contacts, discovering Fisk and slowly tiptoeing around him - wanting those weapons and trying to figure out how to best take down Osborn - every move he made there was calculus on how much good he would have to do to balance out his plan. Sometimes he was overwhelmed, unable to understand how he could make Osborn suffer and not become the demon to do so. He didn't understand how, if, his work at FEAST could be enough to balance what he planned to do.

And then, May Parker.

Recently widowed, desperate to keep herself busy, still raising a devastated teenager, and somehow still able to smile. Wheat cakes, sage advice, and warm, gentle hands. She was a gift.

"Oh, it's not all that," she said, "So long as you help one someone you help everyone."

Those simple words had meant everything. Li was suddenly able to put his work in perspective - he could at last fight the Demon back, he could convince himself he was doing good. May had been a revolution to his life, the greatest gift his could have received. She became inseparable from FEAST, and from Li's vision of positive chi. She inspired him.

But even she could not hold back the Demon.

Once Fisk was taken down, his plan was set in motion - the time for hesitation was over, it was now time to act. To be resolute. To end Osborn. And still his hand hesitated, as he sat in his office at the lead FEAST center. He was resigned to his fate, but not yet pulled by it. Even Peter sensed something was wrong, but Li took a breath and turned his back. He would have to cut himself off entirely from that which gave him the most fulfillment. He would have to immerse himself in negative chi, ignore the positive chi of May and Peter.

And Spider-Man and his positive chi, as he rose up to try and create balance. But the negative chi was so powerful, and Li could not let his old life hold sway now that he had made up his mind. He tied up his loose ends, left letters for May and FEAST, turned towards his goals: get the doctor and the serum that had created him, call Osborn out and infect him with the agent, hurt Osborn in his company and in his city, reduce his power, and finally kill him. Then the source of the negative chi would be gone, and Li could make positive chi for the rest of his life to balance the terrible acts he would be forced to commit.

For there would be terrible acts. He would have to become a demon to remove the Demon.

And he did.

Grand Central had failed, the ruse of holding the station hostage, attempting to lure out Osborn, failed because of Spider-Man. Brought to the Raft for all of five seconds before Octavius had come to free him.

But it hadn't been enough. Osborn had been in his grasp, right there for the taking, and Spider-Man had swooped in with his positive chi to diminish the power he had created. He did not understand the Balance, he did not understand why Li had to be the Demon, to be "Mr. Negative." The hero thought he was helping but he was only hurting, his positive chi had been twisted into negative, and Li was utterly furious. But it hadn't been enough. He had been defeated, knocked out only to wake in a cell in the Raft where he could not corrupt anything. He was now locked away, unaware of the outside world, marking time only by the sleep cycles. Guards talked intermittently - Octavius had not been captured yet. Until he was. Power was being restored, communication channels reopened, a deluge of information:

Spider-Man had protected Osborn, had defeated Octavius. Li's rage had been intense, but the cell was secure and there was no one to corrupt.

And then he received word that he was to have a visitor.

Li sat in his cell, carefully cordoned off, prevented from corrupting people with his negative chi, as the guards went through the thorough procedures of ensuring safety for the mysterious visitor. Security was heightened, cameras were turned to him, but Li was empty. The emotion had burned out of him when he let the Demon out, there was nothing left to feel other than mild curiosity.

The door opened, and at first it was a silhouette - tall and stiff - that shuffled in on a bad leg. Then worn jeans, oversized flannel, brown hair-

"Peter?" Li asked, eyes widening as the boy sat down. One of his arms was wrapped in gauze and held in a sling close to his chest, an enormous hematoma and contusions colored the edge of his jaw below his ear, his forehead, and there were several cuts and abrasions. He looked like he'd just come out of a war zone. "Peter, what happened?"

"Hi, Mr. Li," he said, eyes downcast, shifting his weight to get comfortable. It looked like moving hurt him. "I'm fine."

"No you're not," Li said, leaning forward, eyes roving over the boy. "Who did this to you?"

Dark eyes, empty of sleep, snapped up to him, Peter's face filled with so much that couldn't be labeled before looking back down. "Didn't see who it was," he said simply. A lie, but Li didn't understand why. Li was acutely aware of the separation between them, of the heavily reinforced glass, of the cameras and subroutines. He could not reach out, put a hand on Peter's arm, could not dip his head down to see into the chocolate eyes and see more of the lie. Even after everything with the Demon, a part of Li was still at FEAST, still at his heart's home, still wanting to help. Li shifted his own weight, uncertain what to do. He had not felt compassion in weeks. The silence drew out.

Finally, Li asked, "Why are you here?"

Silence again, Peter almost didn't answer. He could make out May's nephew chewing on his lip - a sign, May often said - of a guilty conscience.

"I… I wanted to see how you were doing. If there was anything I could do."

Li sat back, once again empty. "There's nothing you can do. I made my decision."

Peter rocked in his chair again, very careful in how he moved.

Clearly this was painful for him. Li couldn't blame him - it couldn't be easy to see a friend - former friend - turn out to be a monster. There wasn't much to be done, to be said, but Li didn't want to cause Peter more pain. "Tell me how things are going," he said gently, putting on a small smile. "Did Gloria keep her job? Has Eileen finally moved in with her daughter? How is May doing?" He'd been forced to burn so many bridges, seeing Peter brought it all back: the work, the people, the small tasks that added up: when you help one person you help everyone. Li still stood by that - killing Osborn would have helped millions - but Peter could be a small good deed. A tiny flicker of positive chi to stave off all the negative chi he'd been forced to create.

Peter looked up - finally - and his face was a wide open book: eyebrows were up almost to his hairline, jaw slack and oh, that bruising looked terrible. Peter caught himself, eyes shifting in several directions before looking away. "Uhm," he said. "It's uh… it's been a little hard since the outbreak." He shifted again, always moving so gently, were his ribs broken? "All the FEAST shelters are flooded with people. Some can't go back to their apartments because of the quarantine. Some are separated from their families and have nowhere to go. The inmates were attacking relief trucks for a while, and you know food and medicine can get kinda scarce on a good day, let alone now... Miles - he's the son of Officer Jefferson, the man who died at the political rally - he snuck out to the Sable checkpoints to get antibiotics. There's not a lot of room, so I'm usually up on the roof."

Li blinked. "The roof? Are you not allowed back to your apartment?"

A slow, sleepless stare, before Peter's eyes widened in realization. "Uh… no," he said. "I was… I was evicted, the day before the rally."

Li blinked. What?

"My… my job fell through, and I was already behind on the rent. I got the notice the day Fisk was arrested, and Doctor… the funding was cut and I couldn't be paid anymore."

Compassion welled up in Li again, sprung from the depths of his respect for May and having to listen to several stories about Peter fighting to keep an apartment. Parker luck, May had called it.

"But… about FEAST… Gloria, she was appointed manager after the cure was announced, and Eileen did go up to live with her daughter. Even, her chess partner, he's going to join her soon - got a job with her son-in-law."

Then it was not a waste. Li's work would continue with May. He could take solace in that. Li leaned back, surprised to find himself smile. "Good," he said. "Something good has come out of this."

Peter winced as if struck, pulling Li's eyes to him. The boy's body was shaking, he lost all color, making the circles under his eyes even more pronounced. Again Li wondered what had happened to him. Who had beaten him so badly. Who would hurt someone as earnest as Peter?

"You're… you're right, I guess," he said, and his voice was a broken as the rest of him. "You have to find the positive where you can. You have to remember that some people were sa… were save…" He hunched forward, even now still cautious of how he moved, but his head dipped down and his shoulders shook, and Li suddenly understood that something had happened. Not just his physical attack, but something deeper.

"Peter, please. Tell me what happened?"

Peter shook his head, Li could hear the sobs now, was forced to watch and unable to help. He glanced up at the cameras, wondering why no one was coming in to help young Peter, wondering how the boy was standing, wondering what he could do trapped in his cell as he was. Peter was linked to May, the least Li could do was help her beloved nephew. He stood from his chair and walked to the edge of the cell, the window thick and reinforced, a barrier to his destination but not to his goal. He knelt down, dipping his head to see Peter better, pressing his palm to the window of his cell.

"It's okay, Peter," he said softly. "It's okay. It's alright. It's okay…"

Time disappeared as he offered soft platitudes; the words fell on empty ears, Peter obviously was insensate, but Li kept it up. He could remember doing this for Peter years ago: May had brought him to the shelter to give him something to do - he had been getting into fights somewhere, always coming home with a bruised face or torn shirt, and she needed him to do anything else. Li had watched him from above as he walked around the gymnasium, gawking at all the people there, eighteen and still so ignorant of the world. Peter had listened as someone told him that Spider-Man had crashed into their apartment battling one of the villains - the building was declared structurally unsound and they had nowhere to go. Li remembered the boy's face, young Peter losing color and asking how that could have happened. Later he found the child sitting in a corner in the laundry room, lost in his thoughts and silently crying.

Li had been able to hold the boy then. He couldn't now.

Eventually, Peter came back to himself. He leaned back and his eyes were swollen and red, in concert with the bruises and cuts on his face. He was a wreck.

"MJ said this was a bad idea," he confessed. His voice cracked with use. He sniffled, hand lifting to wipe his face. "Guess she was right."

"What can I do?" Li asked.

Peter looked at him - really looked at him - for the first time since entering the visitors chamber, and his eyes were clear.

"When…" his words ran out immediately, eyes welling. But he did not break Li's gaze, he did not turn away. "When Uncle Ben died, I was really angry. I wanted to find the guy responsible and make him pay. I wanted him to hurt the way I hurt. 'Jail is too good for a home invader,' I thought. I just… everything hurt."

Li nodded but made no comment, uncertain where this was going for now.

"I had forgotten something," Peter said, sniffling again. "I'd forgotten the most important thing, and when the guy was… when the police said who he was I realized I knew him."

Li frowned. "What?"

"I never told May. I met him. Just once. He was robbing a convenience store and I just… I let him go. I stepped aside. I could have stopped him… and I didn't…" A single tear ran down his face. "I'm the reason Uncle Ben died."

"Peter," Li said, "You can't be held responsible for the actions of a criminal."

Dark eyes locked in pale skin stared at him, a hard frown and straight back. Even beaten and weakened as he was, Peter had a spine, and he leveraged it on Li, and the billionaire didn't understand why.

"I forgot the most important thing," Peter repeated. "Power and responsibility. I had the power to stop him, that made it my responsibility to stop him. I didn't. And Uncle Ben died because of it. And I didn't learn. It happened again."

Li frowned again, still unsure what he was getting at - oh, it was obvious that he blamed himself for Li's decisions, but what did one have to do with the other? Li leaned back, stretching to his feet, gaining height. "Peter," he said, looking down at his sitting visitor, "You couldn't have stopped me."

The power play didn't affect the boy at all. He held his arm in it's sling, but even through the blood and tears he was somehow the picture of strength. This was a Peter Li had never seen before: not the wide-eyed teenager, or the scatterbrained college student, or the struggling twenty-something. Confidence, was that it? This was a Peter Parker who was confident, self-assured, and not willing to back down. He didn't say anything, but his face said it all: Yes, I could have. Then, But I didn't.

Just like that the steel melted away, Peter's expressive face crumpling in on itself as a thought struck him, and he hunched forward, hand reaching up to touch his bad shoulder. "Uncle Ben…" he said, voice barely a whisper. "If I had done anything to the home invader, it would have been a disrespect to Uncle Ben's memory, to the most important thing he taught me. Everything I've done since then is to so show him respect. And now I have to do it again.

"That's why I'm here. I want to help you."

"Peter…"

"Would they be happy?" he asked suddenly. "Your parents?"

Li stepped back as if struck. "How do you know about them?"

"MJ. Investigative reporter, remember?" Peter shifted in his chair, wincing. "They died when your experimental treatment with Dragon's Breath went… went bad."

The memories rushed through Li's mind so suddenly he didn't know where he was: he could still remember the cool metal of the medical bed, the smell of disinfectant and his mother's perfume. He remembered the observation room, Osborn in silhouette as he was injected with the Dragon's Breath, the sensation of everything inverting, and then negating, and the so much pain. It was the worst memory of his life. Peter had no right to invoke it. He took a shuddering breath, shaking the memories away.

Peter was still sitting in his chair. A hint of steel having dropped back, but his eyes were soft, concerned. "I'm sorry," he said. "I know how bad a memory like that is. I just wanted to ask you, if you think your mom and dad would have been happy to learn what their son decided to do with his power."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know they would have been proud of Mr. Li. The man who came from nothing and became a billionaire. They would have been proud of someone who started a string of homeless shelters and saved hundreds of lives. They would have been proud of the man who worked so hard to help everyone. I just wonder if they would have been proud of Mr. Negative."

Anger prickled against Li, his neutral to slightly positive state immediately switching, the Demon boiling up. "We'll never know," he growled, negative chi starting to bleed through. "We won't know because they're dead. They're dead and it's Osborn's fault."

His eyes were still soft, still concerned, but Peter sat straight in his chair, sling against his chest, and he said: "May is dead, too."

And just like that, the negativity disappeared, blank shock rolling across Li's emotions as the words sank in. May…? May Parker? What…?

Everything stilled and distilled: the dark circles under Peter's eyes, the bright read of his cuts and bruises, the wrinkle between his brows, the harsh overhead light - the well of tears. That face would be etched into Li's mind as surely as his parents, locked into the hippocampus to be visited in his nightmares. His first reaction was disbelief.

"What?"

Another tear slid down Peter's cheek, his raw pain visible for anyone to see.

"Aunt May," he said. "Devil's Breath. She died eight hours before the antiserum was ready for distribution."

"... And now, it is you, who inspires us."

The party flooded Li's mind: Peter awkwardly trying to hold her attention as they brought in the balloons and cake, the wonderful look of surprise. Double layer vanilla, buttercream frosting, her favorite, the clapping and fanfare, and most of all that smile. May was the best of the world, a gentle soul who loved everyone around her, even demons like him. The loss overwhelmed him, the tragedy. The world had lost something precious, as he had lost his parents. Li staggered back as if struck, fumbling to find the chair a few feet behind him.

"May…" he stuttered, shocked. And then the rest of the words sank in.

Devil's Breath.

She died from Devil's Breath, that which had cursed him.

"How…?" he asked. "How?"

Peter looked at him, pain keeping him silent, as Li rocked with the news. He had thought he was empty of emotions, balanced with the Demon unleashed, but now hurt as raw as when he was a child flooded him - he was shaking as Peter had been earlier, memory after memory of May gliding over his field of vision. How? All that work to get Devil's Breath, to destroy it and make sure it never hurt anyone else - all that effort to make sure no one else suffered the way he suffered…! He stared at Peter, uncomprehending. Peter stared back, equally confused.

The boy pursed his lips, an awkward hum vibrating from his throat as he shifted his weight again, painfully. His shoulders hunched again, his eyes sliding down as they had at the beginning of the visit. Another sniffle, and then, "Doctor Octavius."

And then Li understood.

Betrayal.

And then, rage.

"He knew!" Li shouted, emotion surging him to his feet. "He knew what the GR-27 would do! He told me he had secured it, that I could destroy it once Osborn was dead! He saw what it did! He was there when it happened!"

Octavius had told him the story, how he had left Oscorp because of the tragedy, how he'd dedicated himself to prosthetics, medical research, worked so hard to correct the mistake he'd made only to have Osborn revoke his funding and shut him down. Octavious had been flooded with negative chi, too, had been damaged as Li had been damaged - they were kindred souls, and the idea of assembling a collection of negative chi to cancel out Osborn had been a stroke of brilliance! Octavius had asked of Grand Central with intense curiosity surprised that the threat of releasing the toxin was a ploy, a gambit to bring Osborn out. To know that he had unleashed the very plague that had started all of this…! His vision greyed out as the Demon came, negative chi pulsing and bursting out of him as he roared.

"How dare he! He knew!"

"Mr. Li! Martin!"

Mr. Negative threw an arm out, chi pouring out of him, splashing against the reinforced cell walls. He pushed more out of him, needing to break something, needed to anything to feel as shattered as he felt in that moment. All that precious, precious work to get ahold of GR-27, to remove that threat to humanity along with Norman Osborn, and now it had been twisted to the very thing he had been trying to avoid, and now May Parker was dead! He added his other hand, still burning his throat out, trying to burn through all of his negative chi in one fell swoop. Perception was no longer in his grasp, all he could think about was May, smiling and cooking and talking and organizing, photocopying application forms and calling business after business and cajoling people worth six or seven figures to donate to FEAST and help more people. Octavius had ripped her from the world, had ruined the best part of Li's plan, had appropriated Li's ideals and twisted them into something darker than they already were.

When he was finally aware of himself his cell was covered in the black and white sparkles of his power, guns from multitudinous hidden ports extended and aiming at him, red dots speckling his orange jumpsuit. He was panting, his voice was broken, and his face was moist.

And there, beyond the cracked glass foot-thick glass, was Peter. He was still there, standing. Watching. Waiting.

Li had hurt him worst of all.

"... I didn't know," he said, voice hoarse and cracked. "Peter… I didn't know."

The boy stepped forward, still limping, and pressed a palm to the cracked glass.

"... I know," he replied, just as hoarse.

"... I can't believe she's gone…"

"... I know…"

Li leaned back on his knees, looking up at the guns, at the destruction. He looked down at his hands, color was still inverted, but slowly fading back to normal. "It shouldn't have turned out like this…"

"No," Peter said softly. "It shouldn't have."

"I just wanted balance. I wanted to remove all of that negativity, cancel it out so only the positive remained."

Li looked to Peter, beaten so badly, now bereft of the only family he had left, orphaned in the same way he had been orphaned. Somehow, through the bruises and cuts, through the raw agony he was going through, he still thought to visit Li. Thought to help him. He was so like May his eyes welled up, vision blurring.

"Ben taught me about responsibility," Peter said, doors opened from somewhere, armored guards advancing into the visiting room. "But May taught me about helping people. There's another side to that balance, Mr. Li: positive and negative deeds aren't multiplied or divided, they're added and subtracted. Adding to the negative does nothing to help the positive. And… in this world we need all the positive we can get."

That was all Peter could say; the guard were quick and efficient, lining up their sites on Li while they grabbed Peter and pulled him away from Li - no, from the Demon. From Mr. Negative.

All the positive we can get, and Li had thrown it all away.

And Osborn was still alive.

And there was so much for him to think about.

End

Author's Notes: Nothing to see here, just the twins enjoying the heck out of a game we're playing. Don't worry, the Unity rewrite is chugging along - sometimes one sentence at a time, but this entered Image's head and she had to get it out. Unbeta'ed. Enjoy!