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Laynie and Carter stuck their heads in the main living area, looking around for signs of life. They had just come home from shopping for a few summer necessities, and the house was significantly quieter than it had been when they left.
"Girls?" Bruce called. "I'm the only one home."
"Emergency mission?" Laynie asked, flopping into a chair.
"Yep. China. They got a lead on Loki's staff."
"And you're here because...?"
"To keep an eye on you two. Tony is worried you're on the verge of doing something stupid." He eyeballed Laynie specifically.
"We're always on the verge of doing something stupid, Bruce. I mean really."
"She's right," Laynie agreed. "And there's nothing you can do to stop us. It's inevitable."
"So as the sun sets every day... Laynie and Carter do something stupid," he muttered.
"So you understand then?" Carter sat next to him on the couch.
Bruce snorted. "I think I've got the basic idea."
The girls lounged with Bruce for a while, doing homework and goofing off on the internet.
"Excuse me" JARVIS called. "But I believe you would like to see this."
The television turned on to the news channel, where a camera was watching from the air as Peter got his butt kicked. Doc Ock, Electro, Mysterio, Sandman, the Lizard and the Green Goblin had apparently teamed up and cornered Peter, throwing him back and forth like a rag doll.
"JARVIS, call Kate and Noh-Varr." Laynie whipped her head around to look at Bruce. "Bruce, please, I need my suit."
His eyes widened. "No, no way Laynie. I'm here to keep an eye on you, not to help you do exactly what your dad doesn't want you to."
"Bruce! Peter's going to die if someone doesn't help him! Kate and Noh-Varr won't be enough, not against all of them."
Carter grabbed a hold of his arm. "Bruce, please. Peter's our best friend. He needs help." She pleaded.
"It's too dangerous," Bruce shook his head.
"Please Bruce," Laynie begged.
He looked helplessly between the two girls. "I can't help you get your suit. I also can't tell you he wrote down the password for the vault because he didn't want to forget it. Or that he put it in his nightstand."
Laynie threw her arms around Bruce's neck. "Thank you. Carter, get my laptop and go up to our apartment. JARVIS has a setup all ready for you."
Laynie ran up the stairs to her dad's apartment while Carter took the elevator. She tore through his nightstand, not caring if he knew later that she'd gone through it. Finally, she found a tiny slip of paper in the bottom drawer. She read it a few times, shoved it in her pocket, and ran downstairs.
She really would rather not suit up in her stiff blue jeans, but she didn't have time to change. So she punched the password in and watch the cylindrical vault roll open on her suit. For a moment, she hesitated putting the suit on. She could really only imagine how furious her dad would be when he found out, but she had no option. This wasn't about rebellion—Peter needed help.
Laynie turned her back to the suit and put her arms out. The suit opened on its own and closed around her. The HUD loaded quickly, booting up JARVIS and working on the virtual environment mapping.
"Can you hear me Carter?"
"Loud and clear."
"Get me an address."
Laynie turned to leave the armory and stopped when she saw Bruce standing in the doorway. "Laynie, be safe."
She nodded once. "I'll try not to give my dad reason to kill you."
"Noh-Varr and Kate are close," Carter said.
"I'll be right there." Laynie stood on the launch pad, looking out at the city. "This is my first time flying outside."
"Well, good luck with that. Don't hit any buildings, don't hit any people, and don't hit any birds. If you can do that, I'd say it's a success."
She took a deep breath. "Gotcha." Taking a little bit of a running start, Laynie dove off the launch pad and managed to get above the buildings. Thankfully, there wasn't much to hit, and she was good at flying straight lines. Getting down to the streets again was another story. She stumbled into a landing, right in the center of the circle of villains.
"Take Ock out first if you can," Carter said.
Laynie turned and blasted two of Doctor Octopus's legs out from under him, catching him off guard and causing him to fall.
"Noh-Varr's coming in on your left."
"I'm getting Peter then. Tell him to keep Ock busy."
"I just linked you up. Tell him yourself."
Laynie told Kate to take a bird's eye position where she could be the most useful, but not to get too close. Noh-Varr would blast his plasma guns at Doc Ock's tentacles, doing nothing but keeping him occupied and ticking him off.
When Ock lost his concentration, he threw Peter. Laynie blasted off and grabbed him out of the air before he could collide with a building.
"Ow," he groaned.
Laynie set him down on his feet, keeping a hand on his shoulder to be sure he wouldn't fall. There were cuts all over his suit, big and little from being grabbed by Ock and attacked by Lizard.
"So Doctor Octopus is planning something, huh?"
He laughed a little, trying to catch his breath more than anything. "Yeah. Meet the Sinister Six."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah- I'm just maybe going to throw up. And also maybe have a concussion or two."
Laynie flipped up her face plate, holding Peter's shoulder and stooping to look into the big white eyes of his mask. "Peter, do I need to take you to Carter now or will you wait on the sidelines while we take care of these guys?"
He brushed some dirt off his chest and stood as tall as he could, feeling dwarfed by Laynie's tall suit. "I'm going to help. For as long as I can."
"At least give him an earpiece," Carter sighed.
Laynie flipped open a small hatch on her left arm, pulling out an earpiece for him. "Keep in contact. Carter is there to help us, and JARVIS is there to help her."
He carefully pulled up one side of his mask to stick it in his ear. "Okay." He held his fist out toward Laynie. "Let's do this."
She bumped his fist with her metal-coated one, and they both leaped into the fray.
"Laynie!" Peter called. "Take care of Electro— your suit is insulated, right?"
"Right! That's brilliant. Help Noh-Varr out, would you?"
"Lizard is down," Kate announced. "Moving in on Mysterio."
"Noh-Varr, Green Goblin is escaping," Carter said.
There was a collective groan. The little team was having troubles keeping the remaining five in one area long enough to make an attack. Spidey was the only one quick and lithe enough to weave in and around Ock's tentacles without getting hurt, but the good doctor wouldn't go down. Kate was wasting arrows on the illusions Mysterio surrounded her in, and Noh-Varr was nowhere to be seen.
Laynie grunted and closed her eyes as Electro sent another blast of electricity at her. She could feel hair on her arms and neck raise whenever the electricity hit her, but her suit was well insulated enough that it didn't hurt. But she had no way to contain him. Pure energy— what could she do with that? How long before he realized his attacks were having no effect on her and he moved on to Kate or Peter?
"Carter, I need help. Remind me of that time the Avengers fought Arthur Parks."
"Right now? Laynie—"
"Please just do it!"
There was a crackle on the comm, and Bruce's voice came out of it the next time. "Hulk clapped and broke the sound barrier. It broke up the unstable photons making up his form. What are you thinking?"
"If Kate could get an arrow that emits a high frequency, would that stun him or what?"
"That's a great idea! Except I don't have any of those," Kate deadpanned the last part,
Laynie dodged another bolt of energy and tried to hit Electro with her repulsors. He stumbled back a step, then fired again with more power than before. "Okay, don't do that again," she mumbled to herself. Wait! Wait a second! I can overload him if I use all three repulsors at once, can't I?"
"It's worth a shot," Bruce said. She could imagine him scratching his head and pushing up his glasses as he thought. "But if it doesn't work he'll just be more powerful."
"Right."
Before she could talk herself out of doing it, Laynie fired the unibeam along with each of the ones in her shouted and his blue glow intensified until Laynie let off, and he was left looking even more juiced-up than before.
"Armor power depleted to forty percent," JARVIS announced.
"Crap," she mumbled.
He fired a bolt of electricity at her and hit her square in the chest. She flew ten feet backward, stopped only by a car.
Only ten feet away, Peter ducked a sand mace from Sandman and grabbed one of Ock's tentacles with his webs, pulling himself up along with it. When Ock brought the tentacle up to fling him off, he took the opportunity to plant a kick in his face.
He stumbled back on his metal tentacles, tripping over a car and crashing back.
Using his momentum as he fell, Peter grabbed him with two webs and swung him around twice before letting him fly.
Doctor Octopus flew through Sandman, scattering him, and into Electro. His metal tentacles collided with the other's supercharged body, creating a hum of electricity and a bright flash. Doctor Octopus was taken out of the game, and Electro was drained of his additional energy.
At the same time, the flash of light shone through Mysterio's false selves and helped Kate discern which one to take down.
They regrouped at the car Laynie was pulling herself out of, Peter rubbing his shoulder where he'd hit the ground. Kate helped haul Laynie out of the car.
"You're doing really good guys," Carter said. "Four down, two to go! Noh-Varr is headed back your way."
"Wait." Laynie counted on her fingers, looking at the villains surrounding her. "Oh, Sandman. Where is he?"
Peter shushed her. "He was scattered when I slingshotted Doc Ock through his body. It'll take a minute for him to pull himself together."
"Do you have any brilliant ideas here?" Kate asked. "Both Electro and Sandman are practically impossible to contain."
Peter rubbed his masked chin. "I don't know. I've only ever succeeded in getting Electro to run away, never captured. If you can get him in water, his powers are—"
"Speed it up Peter, they're getting up," Laynie said anxiously.
"Douse him. However you can. And as for Sandman... I've only ever seen SHIELD contain him in an hourglass that was constantly moving. It kept him from taking a solid form."
"Right. We...don't have anything like that."
As Electro rose to his feet, Laynie grabbed Peter and shoved him behind her. "You and Kate keep planning. I'm going to keep him busy."
"Laynie! Your suit looks like crap, what are you going to do when it can't take this anymore?"
She examined the schematics of her armor's integrity, then looked over the gashes in the blue and silver metal. "Get electrocuted. Keep planning. I'll be listening."
Peter groaned, but he let her go.
"It's for the best," Bruce said over the comm. "You and Kate are much more vulnerable than she is."
Noh-Varr jogged up to them, pulling his escaped hairs back into his bun. "Goblin got away, but he won't be coming back around for a while."
"Electro and Sandman are the last men standing," Kate said, brushing some rubble off the taller man's shoulder.
"Sand doesn't conduct electricity," Carter mused over the comm. "There's got to be a way for these two to cancel each other out."
"That's what I was thinking," Peter agreed. He leaned heavily into the ruined car, rubbing his head.
A smile spread over Kate's face. "Okay, here's the plan."
When Laynie looked behind her, her team was gone. In fact, they had disappeared from her scanner altogether. But she was too preoccupied to worry about them, with both Sandman and Electro attacking at the same time. Carter was silent, but JARVIS kept her in the loop on what the attacks were doing to her armor.
After having taken a hit with Sandman's spiked mace, the armor on her left arm was crushed. The mechanics in it were practically ruined, making it hard to move the arm at all. She just hoped Electro wouldn't see the exposed skin there.
"Hey guys! Some team work would be great right about now!"
"Fall back Laynie, we're coming!"
Laynie fired one last blast of her repulser beams at Sandman, then rocketed into the air. "I hope you guys have a plan."
Peter came down on Electro, wearing polka dotted rubber wellies and giant rubber dish gloves. There was a plastic sheet of some kind duct taped to his arm. Electro crumbled under Peter's weight and they both rolled up into fighting positions, Peter using his plastic as a shield.
Kate and Noh-Varr charged Sandman, still a little scattered and disoriented, from the other side. With a vacuum cleaner. As Kate sucked sand and other debris into the vacuum, Noh-Varr monitored it emptying into a clear plastic drum.
"Okay, I'm not seeing a plan here," Laynie said. The stabilizing jet in her left hand sputtered, so she took to a nearby roof to watch.
Kate and Noh-Varr picked up as much of Sandman as they could get, then Kate emptied a bottle of water into the container. While Sandman struggled to form in the smaller space, Noh-Varr knocked the drum on its side and rolled it every thirty seconds or so.
Peter shouted when Electro clamped a hand on his arm, sending a shock of electricity through him. He bashed Electro in the head with his 'shield' and he hit the ground. Looking around and seeing his felled teammates, Electro must have decided the battle wasn't worth it anymore. He made a break for the power lines, and was gone just like that.