fizzy bubbles

Summary: Finding out his classmate has powers probably should have been exciting. And maybe it actually was... Until it became exceedingly clear that she was more of an unstable, perpetually nervous Pikachu than a mighty Thor. [Slow-burn Peter Parker x OC; Pre-CA: Civil War - ?]

prologue

It was all supposed to be a joke, really. A tale spun over generations in their family to instill discipline and a sense of spiritual connection into their children. Her grandfather, with a twinkle in his eye, rounded up all four of his grandchildren and situated them around the statue at the center of his yard. Her family, her parents and her brother, as well as her aunt, uncle and two cousins, had travelled out to her harabeoji's place in a rural village in Korea for Seollal.

Normally, they would all just greet each other through the phone, and then eventually through video calls. This holiday, however, her harabeoji was celebrating for the first time since her halmeoni had passed away last year, and no one wanted him to be alone. So her aunt's family travelled down from Seoul, and her own family even pulled her and her brother out of school for a week to come.

Soo-jin and Eun-kyung grumbled as they took their places, but made no attempt to escape. Apollo—or Min-woo, his name at home and his name here, at home—rolled his eyes, but also obeyed with no verbalized complaints. He was 17, a good three years older than her. While that gap wasn't exactly outrageously big, it was enough for him to actually remember their last visit to their grandparent's house more than 8 years ago—their visits in the years since have only been to Seoul, Busan, and Jeju.

Cassiopeia—or Hye-seon, obviously using the Hanja '暳,' meaning 'twinkling star,' and definitely not the Hanja for broomstick like Jake from Sunday School freaking insists—doesn't really have clear memories of this part of Korea, much less whatever this ritual-thing they were being forced to perform. Were they saying some form of grace? Were they cleansing their souls? Were they summoning Loki? She really wasn't sure. All she knew was that they had to do this or they would never move onto eating the kimchi jeon that she could smell even from outside the house.

So she followed the steps of her cousins and older brother, even though she truly had no idea what they were doing.

Circle the figure of our beating heart thrice.

Hum the song of the seas.

Worthy souls shall blessed by the essence of the skies.

She walked around the figure of Byeorak Jang-gun three times, stumbling as Eun-kyung, who was in front of her, trudged her feet into the dirt. She sang a nervous and quiet Arirang, with traces of her American accent seeping through, mostly because the only other Korean song she knew about the sea wasn't actually about the sea—just performed by the sea, or one of the K-pop GOATs, Bada. She felt completely fine after the little stroll around the statue too, because the jitters that suddenly hit her was probably just hunger since the smell of the jeon was literally—totally not literally—attacking her.

Honestly, it was supposed to be nothing more than superstition, and only should have held as much weight as something like opening an umbrella indoors. It was all supposed to be just the humoring of some tradition formed by a great-great uncle who'd had an affinity for writing grandiose poetry and the rock he found and carved.

And it really looked to be going that way.

Cassiopeia's, or just Seon or Cass or Cassie, or even Sunny—anything but Cassiopeia really!—life seemingly was continuing on in the same manner it always had. She went to Korea, celebrated the Lunar New Year at her grandfather's, and then went home with no frills or fanfare. It was normal. Nothing out of place. Absolutely fine.

Sure, her hair was frizzing a bit more and the outlets in her room kept going out, but those could be explained away by other things.

Her lamp exploding? Totally circumstantial.

The sparks coming out of her fingers however? Probably not.

The steel chopsticks she broke into pieces with those sparks? (When she was so excited to eat that jjajangmyeon?) Definitely not.

As much as she'd like to pretend that everything was proceeding as per usual, it was not usual at all for her to be able to generate electricity—especially not the little lightning bolts she saw hovering over her head when she looked in the mirror in her moment of panic. (Which obviously made her panic further).

Let's be clear, the little ritual carried out was not what brought about these abilities. As much as that great-great uncle would have loved to have been that prophetic—and his family to find out that he wasn't just a loon—it was a total coincidence that the rock he happened to pick out as special was actually some alien substance. What she'd later discovered was that, what really occurred was prolonged exposure to the alien artifact and a lucky—or unlucky—reaction with a mutation in her genetics somehow catalyzed the manifestation of some strange, baby Thor levels of electrokinesis. The amount of time it took her to circle the rock three times was apparently enough for her body to decide it wanted to wield powers as well as throw away all her hopes for sanity.

She thanked the gods—god? Sailor Jupiter, maybe?—though these powers did not start to act up until she got back home, and not when she was still in Korea. Or, heaven forbid, on the freaking plane!

An anecdote for the current state of her life: Someone using Pikachu in Smash, but they've never played before and are just hitting random buttons and are at 300% damage and the time limit is 8 minutes, but there aren't any stocks and it doesn't look like this is ever going to end.

Luckily, intense meditation and extremely clenched fists have been enough to suppress her affinity for electricity.

Kind of.

That was really only a hypothesis. And one she'd only been testing for a day.

Not that one day was anything to scoff at. One day was also 24 hours, or 1440 minutes, or 86400 seconds.

That was a full day of not shorting out her laptop as she watched a drama—and perhaps did not leave the house at all because she was terrified which is totally not the point! (The point being it was still a day where no catastrophes caused by her body that decided it wanted to be descended from Thor occurred.)

But... it also happened to be a day without school.

Which she had to go back to in one day.

Or 24 hours.

Or 1440 minutes.

Or 84600 seconds.

Or 1 freaking day.

glossary:

seollal: korean lunar new year

harabeoji: grandfather

jeon: korean pancake

byeorak jang-gun: korean god of thunder & lightning

a/n: hello all! I've hit a bit of a roadblock with like sweet vanilla-I have some later chapters written out, but I can't seem to flesh out chapter twelve! I promise I'm not abandoning it though (it's my baby!), I just need to figure things out.

fizzy bubbles is an idea that came to me some time ago, and I hope it's one that you all enjoy as much as I enjoy imagining it! The title comes from the line "my day started like fizzy bubbles," from GFriend(여자친구)'s song, Gone With the Wind (바람에 날려). This is going to be my take on a teen with powers in our beloved MCU, and it's definitely going to be a sloooooow-burn.

I don't have a faceclaim for Emmy, but I do have one for Cassiopeia (Hye-seon)! It is the absolutely adorable and lovely Umji from GFriend.

Let me know what you think, and hopefully, I'll be back soon! (: