The forest closed in around them—crooked trunks, twisted roots, and a canopy so thick it swallowed most of the light. Everything felt dim, muted, like the place itself was watching them pass.
Natasha broke the silence first.
"How can you even do that?" she asked, stepping over a gnarled root. "Give someone power without touching them."
She wasn't questioning that he could do it anymore. After the boulder, that argument was dead.
What bothered her was the how.
Luke walked ahead of them, hands in his pockets, unbothered by the gloom. "Think of it like this," he said. "If you have a favorable opinion of me, I can do it."
Natasha slowed a step.
"…That's not comforting."
She glanced sideways at him. "So what, does that mean you know what I think about you?" Her tone stayed light, almost teasing, but there was an edge underneath it. "Are you reading my mind?"
The idea clearly bothered her. Thoughts were private territory, and for someone like Natasha—someone who had spent her entire life guarding secrets—that line mattered.
Luke stopped walking and turned partway toward her, his expression straightforward rather than defensive. "No," he said plainly. "I don't do that. I respect privacy. I don't have some creepy habit of poking around inside people's heads."
He paused for a moment, then added, more calmly, "I don't need your thoughts anyway. Intent matters more than words."
Natasha let out a slow breath she hadn't realized she was holding. The tension in her shoulders eased, just a little.
"…Still creepy," she muttered, more out of habit than real accusation. After a moment, she looked at him again. "Then how does it even work? How can you know what I feel toward you?"
Luke resumed walking, hands relaxed at his sides. "I can't explain it properly," he said. "It's not about reading thoughts. It's more like… seeing direction. What someone leans toward, not what they're thinking in detail."
That made Natasha slow her steps.
"How many things can you do?" she asked at last, casting him a sidelong look, "that you just casually forget to mention?"
Luke didn't even think about it. "Enough that it'd turn into a list," he said. "A long one."
Before Natasha could respond, a sharp screech cut through the forest.
The sound was wrong—high, scraping, echoing between the trees. Wanda stiffened instantly, red energy flickering faintly around her fingers.
Luke looked up at the branches overhead, eyes narrowing.
"Wanda," he asked calmly, "do you hate spiders?"
"No?" Wanda replied, confused. "Why?"
"Because you're about to deal with spiders," Luke said. "They're just… a little big."
Natasha tightened her grip on the sword. "How big are we talking about?"
"Human-sized," Luke answered. "Maybe a little bigger."
A dark shape dropped from above without warning.
The spider hit the ground with a wet, heavy thud, legs splaying out as it shrieked again. Its body was massive, chitin thick and glossy, fangs snapping as it lunged straight for Luke.
Luke didn't move back.
He caught it mid-leap.
Both hands slammed around its body, stopping it dead in the air. The impact cracked the ground beneath his feet. The spider thrashed, legs scraping wildly—but Luke twisted, raw strength taking over, and tore it apart in a single brutal motion.
The body split with a sickening sound.
Luke tossed the remains aside like trash. "That big," he said flatly.
Wanda stiffened. She didn't scream or freeze, but the sight still made her skin crawl. Big or small, spiders were still spiders.
There was no time to recover.
More screeches answered the first—dozens of them. Shapes dropped from the trees all around, massive spiders descending on strands, crawling over trunks, closing in from every direction.
Natasha moved without hesitation.
Her sword flashed, Ether energy flaring as she cut through the first spider that lunged at her. The blade sliced clean, momentum carrying her into the next strike.
Wanda raised her hands, fear flickering for an instant before focus took over.
Red chaos magic surged outward, crushing two spiders mid-air as if invisible hands had closed around them. Another tried to flank her—she snapped her wrist and slammed it into a tree hard enough to split bark.
The forest filled with screeches, cracking chitin, and the sound of bodies hitting the ground.
Luke stepped back slightly, watching the two of them work.
"It really hurts my heart," he said dryly, "seeing you both protect me like this."
Natasha didn't even look at him. "Shut up and don't get in the way."
As the two of them kept cutting down the spiders, Luke didn't lift a finger. He watched from the side, arms relaxed, as if this was exactly how things were supposed to go.
They needed to grow on their own.
That was when he heard it.
Click.
Metal against wood.
It was faint, almost lost beneath the sounds of fighting, but Luke's head turned instantly. His gaze drifted past the chaos and settled on the roots of an old tree a short distance away.
Something glinted.
A small golden ring lay half-buried between twisted roots, catching the light in an odd way. It wasn't shining brightly, yet it felt… heavy. As if the air itself bent slightly around it.
Luke felt a pull. Not physical—something quieter, more insistent.
"…Wow," Luke murmured.
He walked toward it, unhurried, crouched, and picked the ring up between two fingers. For a moment, he simply stared at it, then smiled faintly and slipped it into his palm.
"My precious," he said lightly, rubbing it once with his thumb, more amused than affected.
A sharp voice cut through the air.
"That is mine."
Luke looked up.
A small figure stood a short distance away, half-hidden by rocks and roots. Barely three or four feet tall, thin-limbed, pale, with wide, frantic eyes locked onto the ring. In his trembling hand was a dagger—small by human standards, but clearly meant as a sword to him.
Luke straightened slowly, expression calm, almost curious.
"…And you must be the former owner," he said, tilting his head.
The little man tightened his grip on the blade, voice cracking with obsession.
"Give it back."
The forest seemed to grow quieter around them.
*****
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