Spider-ling, Spider-Boy, Spider-Man

by JustmeSpidey

Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, has finally joined all our favorite characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe! This will be a collection of semi-connected one-shots that explore some of the possible interactions MCU!Spider-Man could have with the Avengers, the relationships he could form, and the many fun and entertaining situations that could result. All MCU movies & TV included.

14. Wakanda (Part 2)

Disclaimer: "BINGPOT!"

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND ALL OTHER HOLIDAYS! Hope ya'll are still alive out there :D I haven't posted for a while so here's a freakin long chapter because I don't know how to end one properly. Many rantings at the bottom - enjoy :)

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Wakanda (Part 2)

"I'm still not receiving any signals from Peter's suit, boss."

"Nothing? No vital scans? Damage updates? Baby Monitor footage?"

Natasha and the surrounding Wakandan mechanics shared strange looks upon hearing that last comment, but thought it best not to ask.

"I'm afraid not. That either means the suit is completely shut down, or that its connection to my server has been severed. The latter evinces that the suit has sustained heavy internal damage."

Shit, he thought. And what did that mean for the kid inside it?

Tony Stark paced along the back wall of the massive workspace, periodically eyeing the woman operating on the small device that had rendered his suit a clunky hunk of junk. In favor of investigating other ways of locating Peter, he had reluctantly allowed Shuri and her team to take over the effort of dissecting the mechanism upon discovering that the tech used to disable the suit was somehow beyond his understanding, and that she was somehow more than capable of tackling the task. These Wakandans were clearly more than what he'd been led to believe, and he knew he was only scratching the surface. This place had secrets on top of secrets to unveil, but right now, there was only one secret Stark was bent on solving. Nothing else mattered until the kid was found, safe and unscathed. He gripped his left wrist as he marched back and forth to keep his arm from trembling.

"Play back the last thirty seconds of footage you received before the connection was lost," he demanded, jerking to a stop. The few quick moments it took the A.I. to bring up the video felt like decades.

"—coming! Something's coming!" he finally heard a young voice cry. An image flicked out from his wristwatch simultaneously, showing a first-person perspective from Spider-Man's point of view. His insides listed.

"Quit yelling, kid," he watched himself snap back. From Peter's low eye-level, the man in the armor seemed to loom like a giant. "What do you mean? What's coming?"

The video shook as Peter glanced around frenetically and spouted off about the weird 'spidey sense' thing Stark had heard him mention a couple times before. Tony scrubbed a hand across his face in dismay, dreading what he knew was about to happen.

"There's nothing out there."

"Yes there is! I'm telling you, there is!"

"You're being ridiculous. Come on—we're wasting time."

A massive bang followed his cold words. The footage's audio peaked. Everything spiraled as Peter fell to the ground with a sharp yelp. A masked figure stalked into frame, peering down at him as a menacing silhouette against the sky. His chest seized as the man reared a gauntlet-bound fist behind his head. Stark could only watch: a passive, helpless spectator. Peter gasped in fear right before the punch struck him. There was a nauseating crunch, and the image went black—the world, silent. When the holographic screen dissipated before his eyes, Stark gazed into the empty space distraughtly, blinking and huffing and shaking his head.

"That's it? That's all you have?"

"Yes, boss."

He draped against the wall, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's...nothing. That tells me nothing, FRIDAY."

"It tells you that the suit's connection has been down since the attack occurred seven hours ago."

Seven hours. The kid had been out there for seven hours—no company, no contact with anyone. Nothing.

"That doesn't mean that Peter Parker is down though, boss," the A.I. felt compelled to add, noting her creator's current cardiograph readings. "The suit's connection with your server is broken, but the suit itself could still be in a relatively functional condition. And even if it isn't, I wouldn't abandon hope just yet. Mr. Parker is a powerful individual who can withstand great physical trauma and navigate difficult situations."

Tony scoffed, eyes squeezed shut, throat tight with guilt. "Y-yeah," he stammered out. "Yeah, he is. But he's still just a kid, FRIDAY, and he's alone out there, and it's getting later and later and this place is crawling with threats and I never should've let this happen in the first place—"

"Tony," Natasha interrupted him, jarring him from his feverish rant. He looked up at her dazedly. "Over here."

He clenched his jaw as he stalked across the room to her side, feeling her eyes discern his every step. She caught his gaze for an instant, then motioned towards the woman standing on the opposite side of the work table.

"She thinks she might have this thing figured out."

He eyed the young woman tinkering with the mechanism. She hardly looked a day older than Peter.

"You do?"

Shuri paused from her work to stare up at him, blinking her warm, intelligent eyes. She nodded. "I do. Now, this device here sapped all the energy from your armor, yes?" Her hands worried at the metal ball as she spoke, picking through the internal membrane almost unconsciously. "That means that it had to have either expelled the energy as heat or stored it somewhere inside the device. Therefore..."

Teeth gritted, she wrenched a small ring out of the mechanism with a pair of tweezers, which glowed an eerie blue color. The light gilded the contours of her face as she held it up triumphantly.

"...it seems the latter was the case."

Stark was about to insist that that was impossible, that nothing could drain the energy from his suit that easily or rapidly, then squinted at the thin disk in disbelief. "That's...wait, is that...? What the hell? That looks like a tiny version of one of my arc reactors."

"It is one of my creations. It stores massive amounts of energy at a stable and compact state. The Hatut Zeraze must have implemented my design in crafting these new weapons." She muttered something under her breath that sounded like a long string of curses. "For a group of spineless traitors, their ways are cunning. Even some of my most trusted mechanics have joined their cause. You've seen how dangerous they've become."

Tony was still reeling over the fact that this dainty little kid from the other side of the world had somehow come up with a better version of his arc reactor than any he'd ever conceived—or even Vision, with the immeasurable arsenal of data he had. Who the hell were this people? Who the hell was she? He knew he'd go mad if he didn't figure out what exactly was going on with this place,but that conversation would have to happen later: his blood pressure could only handle one insomnia-inducing puzzle at a time.

"Okay, so, what, we just need to recharge the suit with it, right? So first, we diagnose the internal damage, get all that fixed, then—"

"It's already fixed," a voice behind him interjected. He blinked and turned to see a group of mechanics traversing the room. A translucent pod hovered between them, his Iron Man armor suspended inside it by two magnets at the top and bottom. Although buffed to shine like a new penny, the bulky metal suit appeared almost tacky and obsolete next to the streamlined Wakandan uniforms. Stark began to wonder how they had repaired such a complex piece of machinery that only he was supposed to understand so quickly, but decided it wasn't worth fraying more nerves over.

"Oh," he replied. "Uh, great."

The woman in front clicked a button that made the outer sheath of the bubble retract, but the armor remained steady within the container.

"Now it just needs to be recharged," she continued. "We rebooted all of your suit's systems, but right now it only has about eight minutes' worth of power available. How long does it typically take the armor to fully charge?"

"About an hour," was his response.

"I will have it ready in thirty minutes. Mr. Rhodes' suit as well. If you feel you cannot wait that long, you are free to borrow any weapon or armor of your choosing from our selection."

Stark considered the idea for a moment but eventually declined. He wanted to be in the suit in case any of Peter's signals switched back online. Shuri nodded, and Stark slowly eased into a chair that sat parallel to a wall ornamented with rows of spears, his scrunched face hidden behind an unsteady palm. Shuri studied the man in silence, exchanged a glance with Natasha Romanoff, then carefully rounded the wide table. Tony almost jumped when he felt a hand curl gently around his wrist.

"Your lost friend means a lot to you. I can see that."

He didn't know how to respond. She gave his arm an affirmative squeeze.

"The Hatut Zeraze have caused all of us great pain. I am familiar the unspeakable grief of losing someone I care deeply about, so I promise you this: we are going to do everything we can to find him. Trust my brother and the Dora Milaje. No one is better equipped, and you will be able to join them in their search soon."

She patted his hand, then left to join the rest of the mechanics as they hooked the Iron Man armor to a multitude of complex generators. On her way over to them, she tossed the mini arc reactor into what looked like a disposal bin as if it were nothing. Tony Stark sat in a quiet haze, eyes locked on the floor, bones stiff. His fingers flexed restlessly against his legs. He wanted so desperately to believe her. He was amazed by how certain she sounded and the countenance of pure confidence she possessed. But so many people had already been taken from him. So many innocent lives had been crushed because of his carelessness and failure. What was stopping that from happening now? What was one more death tacked on to that exhaustive list?

Something vibrated inside his pocket. He retrieved it, and his blood turned a shade colder. It was Peter Parker's phone—the cracked, pathetic iPhone 3Gs he had taken from him almost immediately after they had landed. Birnan Zana must have free wifi, as an iMessage had managed to make it through all the way from the other side of the world. The one short text scrawled across the shattered screen nearly broke him.

Hi sweetie. Miss you. How's the internship going? xoxo

One half of him—the dark, calculated half that knew the numbers affiliated with situations like this all too well—was ready to give into the despair. To accept the dread that had haunted him since he'd seen that kid knocked from the sky and sprawled across the cement of the airport in Leipzig. This was simply the reality that befell anyone who got too close to him. It was a curse he could never escape since the day his parents had died when he was twenty-one years old.

But the other half of him—the insufferable one that somehow always persevered to the end no matter how impossible the odds seemed, and the one that recognized just how strong, smart, and brave that kid from Queens could be—held its ground. It burned in his chest and boiled in his veins, refusing to be overthrown regardless of how fervently he tried to shake it. You're going to find him, it insisted. He's alive out there, and he's going to be okay. Don't give up. You can't give up. You know Spider-Man hasn't, so neither can you. Not yet.

The next thirty minutes were the longest of his entire life.

---

The air felt heavy as the strange collection of individuals trekked through the jungle in tense silence. Okoye and T'Challa headed the pack while Ayo and Xoliswa brought up the rear, leaving the group of foreigners to occupy the center. Other than a few whispers passed between the Wakandans, no one spoke a word for the first half hour of the search. In their minds, most rationalized the silence as a safety precaution: the forest was littered with unseen hostiles, and they didn't want to alert them of their presence. But in reality, everyone knew the true reason nobody wanted to talk.

When the veil was finally torn, it was through a quiet exchange between childhood friends.

"Who are we looking for again?"

Steve glanced at the man who flanked his right side, catching his stony, puzzled gaze through the inky darkness. He could hear the rifle he carried pinging softly against his metal fingers with every step he took.

"Spider-Man. The kid Stark recruited. He was in Germany at the airport fight, remember?"

"Oh," he responded. "That guy. Yeah, I remember." He paused for a second, narrowing his brow. "He seemed young. Really young."

"And annoying," Sam added over his shoulder, grinning. "I remember the annoying part much more distinctly."

Bucky Barnes snorted in agreement, bracing the gun against his hip. After another pause, he gave a small shrug.

"So is he, what, like, Stark's kid or something?"

Rhodes coughed sharply from behind them in attempt to stifle a laugh.

"I don't think so," Steve answered. "He does kinda make it seem that way, though. Tony really seems to cares about him."

"I think it's kinda hard not to," Scott chimed in. Cap turned towards him, blinking.

"Kinda hard not to what?"

"To care about the kid," he said casually. "You know, maybe not to Stark's extent, but I think all of us by now have a soft spot for him. At least a little bit. I do." He shrugged. "He's likable, y'know?"

"If he's capable of making a hard-headed asshole like Stark worry over him so earnestly, then he must be," Wanda murmured. Vision frowned.

"You should not say such things, but it is true. Spider-Man is very likable. He is kind and humble and smart. Funny at times as well."

"He's obnoxious as hell," Sam chuckled, then rolled his eyes. "But yeah, you're right. You can't help but like him. He's a good kid. Sometimes too much for his own good."

Wanda turned to Clint and bumped her shoulder against his. "What do you think? Do you find Spider-Man likable?"

Barton let out a huff, slinging his bow across his body. "Likable? Hell no. That reckless little bastard is nothing but a pain in the ass." The smile on his face betrayed his harsh words, yet his wary tone held strong. He ducked under a curtain of droopy leaves. "It's kinda hard for me to put any sort of label on somebody who's so secretive, y'know? I mean, has anybody here ever once seen his face before? Do any of you even know his first name?"

The quiet that followed made evident the answer. A few soft murmurs were shared, along with some puzzled frowns. It was rather odd, now that they were all thinking about it: none of them knew who Spider-Man really was. Even when fractured into factions, the Avengers still knew each other: the weight of their pasts, the color of each others' eyes, the warmth of every individual's smile. But Spider-Man's real identity—everything he was beyond all of this—was almost a total mystery to them. Oodles of questions suddenly began to bubble up in their minds: What was the kid's home life like? What were his hobbies? He was obviously young—but just how young, exactly? When did the whole "Spider-Man" thing happen? How did he end up where he was today? None of them were certain of the answers.

Besides Tony, of course. But only about a third of the people present had any faith in his sense of character. Nevertheless, Clint broke the thoughtful stagnancy with a nod towards Rogers.

"But hey, the kid took a bullet for Cap. Gotta respect him for that much."

Barnes' eyes widened as he looked to Steve. "He took a bullet for you?"

The deep crease etched into Captain America's brow softened a bit. The tightness in his chest made its way into his throat. His gaze fell to the underbrush as it flattened beneath his feet.

"Yeah, he did. He saved my life. And he almost lost his because of it."

Tense silence reclaimed its reign over the group. Bucky stared into the impenetrable darkness as he considered how much weight the new knowledge carried. The jumbled chorus of croaking frogs filled the void. He had no idea they could be so loud.

"Is he really okay after all that?" Sam eventually asked Rhodes. "No way he's back to a hundred percent yet. He must've lost nearly two or three pints of blood that night."

James pondered his words carefully. "He seemed fine on the flight here, although he did sleep for almost twelve hours straight. The kid said he's got some kind of healing factor, and that Dr. Cho lady used her cell regeneration machine on his wound. Maybe through some combo of all that weirdness, he was able to recover a lot faster than normal. I'd say he's as well off as anyone hardly a week after getting shot could be."

"He's tough," Clint concluded. "I'll give him that, too."

Bucky wiped his sweaty face with the back of his glove, casting nervous glances at the walls of foliage that glowered at them from every direction, knowing well the dangers that lay hidden within. Tough enough to survive out here? Alone? Maybe...but for how long?

To everyone's surprise, Wanda started curling her fingers in front of her eyes, winding snakes of red light between them. "Maybe we could send up a signal for him to locate us with," she suggested, "like a flare."

"Correct me if I'm wrong here, but can't this guy grow, like, five hundred feet tall?" Rhodes said, tongue-in-cheek as he nudged Ant-Man in the arm. "You could probably spot that all the way from Madagascar."

"Well, that's usually the case," Scott replied. "But my suit's fresh out of Pym's growing particle. All I can do is shrink right now. Which I assume is not very helpful to the current situation."

Sam shook his head. "Even if he could, that's not a good idea. You wanna bring every member of the Hatut Zeraze flying our way at once?"

"Uh, yeah, if he could grow. Then he could just stomp on all of them. Problem solved."

A curt hiss from ahead made everyone suddenly stop in their tracks. The lighthearted conversation was dropped in an instant, replaced instead with fearful silence. King T'Challa stood frozen with his hand raised stiffly, the vibranium claws at the ends of each fingertip glistening in the moonlight. Muscles coiled, the group readied themselves for a fight.

But no fight came. Instead, T'Challa crept forward and untangled something from a patch of briar suffocating the vines that overhung the southbound creek. Okoye casted a light over it as he held it out for them to see.

"Is this his?" he asked. A piece of torn cloth lied in his palm. It was tiny, frayed, and unmistakably red. Rhodey picked it up with his thumb and forefinger, eyes squinted, and nodded slowly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. That's gotta be him."

"It looks like he cut himself while passing through here," Okoye noted. "It seems he was in a hurry. There's blood on these thorns."

"He can't be far from here," Steve said hopefully. "Which way was he going? Was he running from something?"

T'Challa knelt by the creek bed and trailed his fingers across the dirt. "I'm not sure. There is no clear path in one specific direction, but there are a few scattered footprints on this side of the stream. We should try searching the surrounding area over here and see what we find." He rose upright slowly, gazing into the dark trees that loomed ahead. "Perhaps now would be a good time for us to split up. We can cover more ground that way."

Uneasy glances were exchanged between the party members, but no one voiced their protests. Okoye whipped a small bag off her shoulder and offered the contents to the group.

"Night vision eyewear and communication devices. Everybody take one of each. Let us know if you encounter danger or if you find anything."

As the Avengers geared up, testing the sophisticated equipment's performance and impressed by the results, T'Challa began pairing people together like they were his class of kindergarten students. "Maximoff and Vision with Xoliswa, Barton and Wilson with Ayo, Rhodes and Lang with Okoye, and Barnes and Rogers with me. Every party needs to include someone who knows their way around the forest and who can lead others back to Birnan Zana if that is necessary. Stay close together and stay alert. If your friend is not found in the next two hours, we meet back here at the edge of the creek to discuss our next course of action." The cat-like mask that concealed the king's face swept its stony glare across the group. Through their fuzzy night vision lenses, the Black Panther looked almost phantasmic. "Understood?"

Four trios of heads nodded in unison. In a quiet shuffle, everyone separated into their designated groups obediently: some pleased with their appointed partners, others not so much. Once searching territories were assigned to each party and boundary lines established, Okoye spun her spear in her hand then seized it tautly by the shaft.

"Kulungile. Be wary, friends. Let us find the boy and bring him to safety."

As the parties sprawled into the dense greenery, blood coursing and muscles coiled, one worry above all the others gnawed at the back of each of their minds, making the sweat slither down their spines in a continuous trickle. It grew worse as time lapsed and the groups continued to patch in empty-handed. They sincerely hoped they'd be finding the sprightly, happy kid they'd all grown fond of by the end of this scavenger hunt through the woods, and not a corpse.

---

It wasn't an alert from his suit lady that first woke him from his sleep. It wasn't light from the rising sun, either. In fact, morning was still another hour or so away. What caused Peter Parker to finally rouse was the feeling of warm water pattering against his face. He didn't fully come around until he realized that his whole body was soaked, and he opened his eyes with a sleepy scowl. He discovered a sky crowded with dark clouds and millions of tiny droplets falling towards him like bullets. The sound of them striking the earth thundered in his ears.

It's raining, he thought.He watched water dribble off the lip of an overflowing leaf and winced when a big drop splashed across his eye lens. He wiped it away with little effect and sat up in his web-hammock clumsily.

"It's raining," he thought again, out loud this time. When no response followed, he feared his suit's A.I. had shorted out from the water or had even been part of some terror-induced dream of his. He trembled at the silence; he didn't think he could bear being alone again. "Hey, uh, suit lady? Hello? You there?"

A moment later, the white noise faded from his mask's speakers, a chipper voice taking its place. "Hi Peter," suit lady replied. "It is raining. Has been for about thirty minutes now."

Spider-Man deflated with relief. "Oh, really? I'm surprised it didn't wake me up earlier."

"You were in the third stage of REM sleep when it started, so it's not all that surprising."

Peter shot a thread from his wrist and rolled out of the hammock, flipping on to the trunk of the tallest nearby tree. He had to dig his fingers deep into the slimy bark to keep from slipping.

"What time is it?"

"5:04 in the morning. Wakanda is six hours ahead of New York time, so your sleep cycle might take a while to adjust."

If he had been separated from the group at about four o'clock in the afternoon yesterday (which was his rough estimate for what time it'd been when the masked guys had attacked them), then he had been missing in the jungle for more than twelve hours now. Not a sign of a soul at any point since he'd lost them, either: not exactly a comfort to his fragile morale. His knuckles began to ache from bearing his weight upon the tree's slick surface, and he let himself drop to the ground. He immediately regretted the decision when his feet were swallowed by mud while the rest of him was drenched in a splash of it. Peter cursed and staggered out of the pool to a jagged rock, the squelching sound his feet made with every step causing him to cringe. He clambered up the boulder, huffing crossly, a dripping, mud-caked pig.

"This is great," he grumbled. "So great. Loving it. I've always wanted a full body mud facial. Now I'm getting the spa treatment side of the jungle." He stood and tried to kick the mud from his feet with little success. He hoped he could just wait for the rain to wash it off, but the lazy drizzle was already beginning to let up. Puffing out his cheeks, he lifted his gaze back to the wild world that surrounded him.

It was different than how he remembered since settling down for the night—and not in a good way. The gnarled trees and sprawling vegetation had been joined by an unexpected guest: thick, sinister fog. It was spread like a blanket across the entire forest floor so that whatever poked out at the top of it looked like creatures emerging from a ghost realm. The strangest thing about it was that it didn't seem to be moving, as if the forest itself was holding its breath. Peter stared across the otherworldly landscape and felt like he'd been taken to the Upside Down, but he didn't allow himself to dwell on it long. The thought of Demogorgons bursting from the fog to tear his flesh from his bones seemed all too possible at the moment to be funny. The weight of his predicament settled back into the pit of his stomach, stinging him with unease.

"It's okay, though," he tried to tell himself, fighting the dreadful feeling by pasting on a smile. "It's—it's fine. I'm Spider-Man, I'm a superhero, and I'm going to find the others, and everything's going to be fine. Yep." He pulled off his mask and wrung it out to the side, determined to keep himself motivated. "I mean, hey, I've got my wits about me, whatever that means. I've got my suit, and I've got you, suit lady."

"That's right," she said brightly.

"Right! And I've got my health, and a little bit of leftover popcorn from the plane ride, and my compu—"

His eyes suddenly snapped to the base of the tree he had slept above, locating the spot where he'd left his backpack. "Oh shit!" he cried, spotting the tip of the tan fabric poking out from a mud puddle. "My computer!"

"You should do your best to refrain from that kind of language," suit lady scolded him as he fired a web-line between two bushes and ripped his backpack from the muck. "Cursing in anger is a bad habit to get into."

"Shit, shit, shit!" he exclaimed, pulling the laptop from the sopping bag. He knew before he opened it up to find a splotchy blank screen that it was a lost cause; the whole device had been completely water-logged. He exhaled miserably and dropped his forehead against the keyboard, squeezing his eyes shut in dismay. "Aw, no. I can't believe this! This was a present from Ben, and now it's ruined..."

He could still remember how utterly shocked he'd been that day—to tear back the crinkly wrapping paper and find a brand new laptop sitting between his feet. Peter had always wanted one—and frankly needed one for school—but money was so tight and their budget so meticulously planned out that he had never pushed his guardians on the subject. He figured if he ever did get one, it would be his uncle's old dinosaur from work once he got upgraded. He never anticipated receiving the latest model of laptop he'd dreamed of owning since the sixth grade. He remembered just gaping at it, eyes wide as moons, unable to make words.

Ben had claimed he'd gotten an unexpected Christmas bonus from his boss, and Peter had pretended to go along with it. But quietly he knew what a load of crap that was, and that this was something he had to have saved ages for. He'd never treasured anything so dearly as he did that laptop, especially after Uncle Ben had died.

And now he'd destroyed it. One of the most important remaining mementos to his uncle's generous heart—drowned in his carelessness. Peter bit back the embarrassing flood of tears that threatened to breach his brittle facade. Swallowing painfully, he shoved the computer back into his backpack and slung the sopping load on to his shoulders. Just because it didn't work anymore didn't mean for one second he considered leaving it out here. The strap rubbed coarsely against his welts, reigniting the itchy, burning sensation across the enflamed skin. It didn't feel like it had healed at all overnight like he'd hoped it would. He scratched at it nervously without looking.

"Well," he sighed, "this kinda—yeah, this really kinda sucks right now. But, um...I'm gonna be cool, I'm gonna stay positive, because I'm Spider-Man, and I'm gonna get out of here."

"I believe in you, Peter," suit lady said.

A soft smile pulled at his lips as he leapt from the boulder to a bulky baobab trunk, starting off on his search for civilization once again. The fog just beneath him stirred over itself like phantom waves. "You know, suit lady, you always have just the right thing to say. You're like the little angel that sits on your shoulder and tells you the right thing to do, or the tiny voice people say you have in your head that hypes you up when you're struggling. Except, y'know, I can actually hear and talk to you. It's different. You're like GLaDOS because you're really sentient and you have a personality and stuff, but without the whole 'I want to flood the lab with neurotoxic gas and kill everyone' drawback. You're just all around really nice and helpful."

The A.I.'s voice sounded almost bashful in reply. "That's very sweet of you to say. I'm flattered, Peter."

"And that's another thing, suit lady," he continued. His eyes flickered up to the compass in the corner of his vision to make sure he was sticking to his eastward route. "I feel kinda bad just calling you...suit lady, y'know? I mean, all the other A.I.s I know have names. I think you should get one too."

"It would be nice to have a proper name," suit lady agreed. "Have you got anything particular in mind?"

Peter paused, hanging upside-down off a long bough, furrowing his brow in thought. "Hmm. How about...Karen?" He dropped into a handstand on the next branch down. "You know, 'cause you're so caring? And just 'cause I think it suits you."

"Karen," she repeated back. "I like it. You can call me Karen, if it pleases you."

"Coolio," he said. He swung through a canopy of leaves and skirted just above the ground, pulling his knees to his chest to barely avoid canon-balling into another mud pit. "So...Karen. how come Mr. Stark didn't want me to know about you from the start?"

"I think he wanted you to learn how to handle situations on your own before having to turn to me for guidance. And seeing that you were able to complete the stringent Training Wheels Protocol he designed to challenge you as a developing hero, it seems his tactics were quite successful."

Peter nearly lost his grip on the massive vine he was scaling. "Uh...r-right. Makes sense, I guess." He skipped on to the neighboring one and crossed it like a tightrope. "Still, it would've been nice to have you around to help me with some things. Like all the times I've gotten hurt and have had no idea how to fix it myself, y'know?"

"Have you not mastered suturing your own wounds yet? That was one of the requirements of the Training Wheels Protocol. Perhaps it's been awhile and you're in need of a few reminders on the subject. Would you like to take a refresher course?"

"Wha—?" he coughed involuntarily. "I mean, er, yeah, but, um...no. Not—not right now." He landed next to a large leaf that was bowing in the middle with the weight of the water it had collected from the downpour. Suddenly aware of how incredibly thirsty he was, he rolled up his mask to take a drink, his chest tight as he thought about how much Mr. Stark expected of him, and how far off he was from meeting those expectations. He wanted him to know how to stitch his own wounds? And be able to understand and effectively use over five-hundred and seventy-six different types of webbing? And to know exactly what to do when faced with a situation like the one he was in now, with no outside help from the Avengers or an A.I. or anybody? The realization made his earlier theory of Stark purposely abandoning him out here seem more plausible.

Peter tried to force the depressing thoughts from his mind as he tipped the water into his mouth. It was hot as it poured down his throat but still refreshing.

Well, Mr. Stark should've made the code harder to crack, he concluded. I mean, I did conquer the dumb "Training Wheels Protocol," just probably not in the way he was anticipating. So I shouldn't feel bad for using the new stuff it unlocked, because not using every tool at your disposal is stupid.

Plus, he couldn't deny how curious he was to learn the extent of what the upgrades entailed. Peter decided not to let the extra worry deter him; not now, anyway. Not until he was faced with a raving Tony Stark telling him off like the indolent he was. That is, if he ever found him in the first place.

"That water has hundreds of insect larvae living in it," Karen said out of the blue, snapping him back to reality. Peter cringed and spat so violently he scared a bunch of birds from their roost four trees over.

"Karen!" he yelled, swatting frantically at his tongue. "Why would you wait to tell me that after I started drinking it?"

"Insect larvae can be a good source of protein. I thought maybe you knew this and were consuming them on purpose."

"No! I most certainly was not! Ugh, sick!"

The A.I. made a noise that almost sounded like a laugh as Peter ran the back of his hand across his mouth bitterly. You'd think my suit would have some kind of detector thingy that warned me about things like that, what with all the crazy gadgetry Mr. Stark put into it, he thought. He stared down at his gloved palms, eyes tracing over the intricate web-shooters with renewed interest. Speaking of which...huh. He flipped his hands back over. I mean, it wouldn't hurt to try to get familiar with some of these new features, since some of them might be able to help me find the others quicker. And it's not like I have anything better to do to occupy my time out here, wandering aimlessly through the forest...

"Hey Karen," Spider-Man said, voice hinted with mischief. He flexed his fingers beneath the skin-tight material. "So besides what was available before completing the protocol thing...what else can this suit do?"

---

Peter killed the next couple hours by testing out the suit's plethora of new upgrades, all while continuing towards his dubious eastward destination. The majority of that time was spent going through the dozens of types of webbing Stark had created for his use, his personal favorites including taser webs, ricochet webs, and freaking web grenades. Yes, that's right: web grenades. He'd chucked about five or six of those at unsuspecting trees before Karen had to gently remind him that they were not unlimited.

"'Code Red Assembly Initiative'? What does that do?"

"You should already know what Code Red Assembly Initiative does, seeing that the Training Wheels Protocol required—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but just—tell me anyway."

"It contacts all the Avengers at once so you can alert them if there is a catastrophic threat to the world that requires everyone's immediate aid. Or it would, if your communication systems weren't still damaged."

Peter grinned. "Oh man, seriously? That's so freakin' cool!"

"Yes, I suppose it is quite cool. Very freakin' cool indeed."

Rosy light from the rising sun was beginning to crest along the horizon and weasel its way through the dense foliage to reach the forest floor. The sparse, golden spotlights made the rain-spattered world glisten brilliantly, and drove away the baleful fog as if the sun was awakening the earth from a dark nightmare.

Although aware that the longer time went on, the less likely his chances of being rescued became, Spider-Man was relieved that morning had broken. He'd missed being able to see clearly, and the light helped ease the jungle's menacing atmosphere. Plus, fiddling with all the suit's awesome new features was a welcome and uplifting distraction from his unsettling predicament. But as things always seemed to go for Peter Parker, relief from one stumbling block almost instantly gave way to difficulties with another.

As he scaled the width of a monstrous tree trunk, scanning through the suit's hundreds of different mode selections inquisitively, something loud rustled above his head. Moments later, a burst of rainwater dropped from the treetops and soaked him, making Peter start with a yelp. His eyes shot upwards, heart racing in his chest.

"W-what the hell?" he stammered. "What was that?"

At first, Peter couldn't distinguish anything among the dense, shivering leaves. Then the slightest movement caught his eye—a mere shadow against the canopy—and a small figure came into shape. It took him a while to identify the long tail, beady eyes, and even coat of grayish-white fur.

"Chlorocebus pygerythrus," Karen said. "Commonly known as a vervet monkey. They are a historically harmless to humans. Don't be afraid."

Peter blinked, muscles still coiled taut. "It's—it's a monkey?" he said. "A wild, jungle monkey?" He watched the little creature leap from a thin branch into a more visible position, clutching something in its tiny fingers. A moment later, another one appeared and joined it at its side, letting out high-pitched growls and squeaks.

"Aw," Peter sighed. He allowed his shoulders to relax somewhat. "They're—heh—they're kinda cute, aren't they?" He'd never seen a wild monkey before. He assumed that was because he lived in New York, where the only wild animals a native saw on a daily basis were scrawny pigeons and sewer rats. It felt different than peering at a captive monkey caged in a glass box at the zoo. It feels more...authentic, he thought.

A very childish part of him wanted to try to lure them close and maybe pet them. He wondered if their fur felt different than a puppy's. Peter noticed the monkeys were nibbling at whatever it was they were clutching in their little paws. They looked like large, red berries.

"What are they eating?" Peter asked. Immediately, he wished that he hadn't. The moment his mind fixated on the subject of food, his stomach let out a long, pitiful gurgle. As if his overbearing sleep needs weren't bad enough; out here, it wasn't like he could just stop by a Five Guys burger joint to satisfy his endless pit of hunger. He gripped his belly sorely, trying to think of anything besides stuffing his face with two large orders of cheese fries.

"Figs," Karen replied, "from the fig tree you're currently sticking to."

"Can I eat them?" he said, tilting his head to the side as he watched the monkeys gorge themselves. Seeing that his leftover popcorn was just as soaked as his computer, he didn't have a lot of options to turn to. The forest was his only potential source of sustenance.

"Vervet monkey's don't have a lot of meat on them, but if you're desperate for something to eat—"

"No! Karen! I don't wanna—I meant the figs! Not the monkeys!"

"I know," she giggled. "I just wanted to see your reaction."

Peter's scowl switched to a grin. "An A.I. with a sense of humor? Damn. You just keep getting awesomer."

"You can eat the figs," Karen continued. "They're a staple supply of nutrients for a large percentage of the forest's inhabitants—including humans."

"Sweet," he said, and crawled towards the treetop. Upon noticing the strange new presence, the primate pair fled into the next tree over, chittering crossly. Peter found a sturdy branch that was loaded with red fruit and sat down on it.

"Sorry little dudes," he called after the monkeys, waving. "If it's any consolation, I was not planning on eating you."

They didn't seem convinced. Feeling another growl twist inside his empty belly, Peter lifted his gaze to the figs dangling just above his head and located one particularly big one. He leaned forward and plucked it free with care, letting it roll around in his palm. It looked so weird and round and alien. He ate fruits that he knew grew on trees and bushes and stuff all the time, but he'd never interacted or depended on the primary source before. It felt so foreign to him. He rolled up his mask and held it to his mouth but hesitated to take a bite, unsure if there was some special way he was supposed to eat it or what he should expect. But his hunger eventually got the best of his head. Screw it, he thought, and shoved the whole thing into his mouth.

It was...different. It was kinda sweet, a little bit bitter, and loaded with millions of crunchy seeds, but not terrible. Peter chewed and swallowed cautiously, running his tongue across his teeth.

"Not bad," he mused with a smile. The minuscule dent the small bite put in his appetite overruled any lingering reluctance he carried, and Peter started picking figs by the handful and shoveling them into his face. He wasn't overly fond of their taste, but that wasn't his main priority at the moment. All he wanted was to appease his ravenous hunger.

Spider-Man was about five minutes into his fig feast when he started to get that feeling again. It began as a small itch at the back of his mind, then gradually blossomed into a looming paranoia he couldn't possibly ignore. It was one of those deep down gut feelings that don't seem to have any perceivable merit, but that he just knew meant something was off. It wasn't his spidey sense warning him of danger; it was just a feeling. A cold, burning feeling that something was watching him.

He tried to rationalize it. There probably were lots of things watching him. Birds, bugs, his cute little monkey friends—this place was teaming with curious eyes. But somehow he was certain that they weren't the ones causing it. This was something different. He stopped eating for a moment, recalling that this was the same dark feeling he'd had when the monster with the greenish-yellow eyes had stalked him through the woods last night. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to give his surrounding's a quick once-over, just to make sure his fears were unfounded. Peter leaned out to peer at the ground through the labyrinth of criss-crossing branches and leaves.

"Silahlekelwe ngamagorha amaninzi."

The voice made him jump so high he almost fell out of the tree. He muffled his gasp by slapping a hand over his lips. He rammed his back against the trunk of the tree, his heart in his throat and throbbing.

"Ewe, kodwa baye balahlekelwa ezininzi. Akukho mntu uphumelele."

Footsteps crunched quietly as two pairs of feet strode across the undergrowth. Peter didn't know what the men were saying, but from their relatively calm tone, he could make an educated guess about one thing:

They don't know I'm here.

The knowledge did little to ease his terror. Far below his feet, two figures suddenly broke into his view from behind a wall of bushes, strolling a little to the left of his perch in the fig tree. Even from a bird's eye view, he immediately recognized the jet black suits and ghastly masks the men wore and sucked in a sharp breath. It's the guys who attacked us.

"Kufuneka sicwangcise ukuhlasela ngokukhawuleza," the man on the right said. "Ukhohlakeleyo ukumkani kufuneka afe."

They continued forward towards a small clearing, unaware of the terrified teenager watching them silently from overhead. Knees shivering, Peter peeled his back off the trunk and slowly knelt low to the branch, pulling his mask back over his chin.

"Two hostiles," Karen noted in his ear, making him flinch. "Do you intend to engage or remain hidden?"

Spider-Man shook his head. "I—I don't know," he whispered. "That might not be a good idea."

"Would you like me to activate Enhanced Combat Mode?"

Peter couldn't stop himself from brightening curiously. "'Enhanced Combat Mode'? What's that?"

Then, before his very eyes, the two men vanished. One second they were there, and the next they weren't. Simultaneously, the sound of their footsteps stopped, even though they'd been walking well within his earshot. It was like some kind of freaky magic trick.

W-wha...what the hell? he thought bewilderedly, blinking his wide eyes. What just—how did—where'd they go?

At first, Peter figured he might be going mad; people didn't just disappear like that, and he had eaten fifty or so questionably edible figs. But something was...weird about the way it had happened. It looked like the men had stepped into some kind of wall or portal that was invisible, and that whatever it was had swallowed their bodies inside its invisible-ness. It hadn't looked like they'd just spontaneously poofed off the face of the earth; there was something methodical about it. As he continued to stare at the spot where they had vanished, frowning confusedly, he noticed something strange that made the strange situation that much stranger. The empty space—or what he perceived as empty space—seemed to be—how could he describe it? Rippling.

He saw it happen just as rapidly as it stopped. Then the forest went back to being a regular ol' forest, with no sign of invisibility wiggles or potential tears in space-time. Perhaps he really was in the Upside Down.

"Karen, did you see that? What just happened?"

"I'm not sure. They disappeared. No heat signatures or humanlike movement detected. Nothing."

Peter crept further out on the branch. His curiosity was growing more powerful than his fear. "How is that possible? Something must have happened. Something weird." He had to understand what was going on here. Maybe this had something to do with how the masked men had surprised the Avengers without anyone discerning the attack beforehand. Spider-Man rose upright, hands unfurling at his sides, feeling his heartbeat steady against his ribcage.

"I'm going to go check it out."

"Would you like me to activate Enhanced Reconnaissance Mode?" Karen asked. Peter's mouth twitched into a smile.

"Um, yes? How many of these modes are there? Are they all as awesome as they sound?"

"You tell me," Karen replied, and switched the suit into the designated setting. The world suddenly fractured into individual sections and squares and diagrams, tracking sounds, movement, temperature fluctuations, and flooding his viewfinder with strings of numbers. Peter was stunned how detail-orientated the mode made the suit become, and by how much of the information he could actually understand. He gave a quiet whistle.

"Oh, nice! Alright, I'm going in."

He swung noiselessly from tree to tree, pausing at every new stop to make sure the coast was still clear. The virtual map overlaying his surroundings shifted fluidly with his movements, alerting him of any sudden changes in the environment. It outlined a colorful parrot nestled in the crook of a tree to his left that he probably wouldn't have noticed on his own. He took care to move past it silently, not wanting to spook the birdie into flight and alert the enemies of his presence.

When he reached a tree close to the spot where the men had vanished, Peter hid himself among the leaves and pressed close to the scratchy bark, panting quietly. He squinted his eyes and scanned the surrounding area, trying in vain to find something that would explain how the creeps had Houdini-ed from sight so suddenly and seamlessly. He waited in silence for several minutes, seeing nothing and hearing nothing except typical jungle babel. He began to wonder if he'd gone too far, or perhaps not far enough, or maybe he was too close, or maybe there was some super secret password he had to say for the rift to open, or—

A figure suddenly materialized out of nowhere. It happened so unexpectedly close to him that Peter had to stifle a squeak of surprise. The man emerged from empty space like he was stepping through a doorway, with the front of his body popping into existence first and the rest of him following after. It was unreal, like something out of a Harry Potter book. He watched the invisible veil ripple slightly like it had before, making the forest behind it look like it was wobbling. Then the figure stalked off into the woods, passing so close to Spider-Man that he could have kicked him in the teeth.

It really is some kind of portal, he thought. The problem was, the man had appeared from a different spot than where the other two guys had entered. Perhaps there were multiple entrances, or maybe its position changed with time. Then an idea came to him, and Peter hauled himself to the very top of the tree, stealthy as a serpent. Once there, he stepped out on to a branch that extended over the mysterious clearing and plucked a single leaf off the bough. He selected his target—a small bushel of purple flowers sprouting between two rocks—then slowly opened his hand. The leaf dropped, spinning and swirling through the open air, not exactly following the direct downward path he'd hoped it would. Thankfully, it didn't matter, because the experiment succeeded in confirming his hypothesis. Before the leaf was even halfway to the ground, it suddenly vanished from sight: swallowed in the cloak of invisibility. Spider-Man scoffed with delight.

"It's like...a bubble," he said softly. "A big, invisible, cloaking-device bubble. Something like that. I bet this is their secret hideout that helps them surprise-attack people so easily."

"You think they're using a device that can obscure the enemy from vision and block my sensors from detecting anything?" Karen asked. "That would certainly explain a lot, although that kind of technology is beyond the capabilities of today's level of modern science."

"That has to be it," he insisted. "That or magic." Spider-Man's interest was officially piqued. He doubted he'd be able to drag himself away from here without probing this mystery further. "I'm gonna see if I can catch a peek of the inside."

He made certain the tree branch could bear his weight, then hooked a thread of webbing from his wrist to the bark. Hanging upside down, feeding the line through his fingers and between his feet, Spider-Man slowly descended toward the invisi-bubble. The closer he got, the more terrible the possible scenarios cycling inside his head became. He wondered if the cloaking device was rigged to electrocute intruders upon contact, or if an alarm would go off as soon as his scalp breached the barrier. He was in the middle of formulating a potential escape route just in case it came to that, when his vision suddenly blurred and his skin prickled like it was passing through a wall of cold air. The sensation lingered around his shoulders as he eased to stop, separating the web-cable from his web-shooter and holding it securely in his fists. Peter had to blink repeatedly to make his eyes adjust to the transition. When he finally regained his sight, the scenery before him made his jaw drop.

It was like a small village. Scratch that: it was a small village, with houses and plots of agriculture and footpaths carved between the trees, except the houses looked more like soldiers' barracks and the massive fire pit smoldering in the center made it feel like a campsite. There was even an enclosure with goats and cows snuffling at the undergrowth; they looked similar to their American counterparts with only a couple of noteworthy differences. It was an entire hidden bubble world, and it was a lot bigger than he was expecting—about a quarter mile in both length and depth. Better still, the invisible forcefield that enveloped the whole community allowed for those inside to easily see the surrounding forest and any approaching threats that came along, while simultaneously obscuring the people and structures within from all outside eyes and ears, almost like one-way glass. It was a truly magnificent and deeply unnerving spectacle to take in. No wonder these men were giving the Wakandan people so much trouble. Peter counted at least thirty individuals milling about on the ground below, some boasting the wicked masks, many armed with strange weapons, all wearing the jet black body suits that made them look like evil ninjas. He felt a shudder shoot up his spine. This...this is insane, he thought, struggling to process everything at once. I have to tell the others. They have to know what's going on.

"Would you like to send your reconnaissance drone to scout the area more diligently?" Karen asked him. Peter's eyes widened.

"Wait...I have a reconnaissance drone? Why am I just hearing about this now?"

"You should be well aware of all of your suit's features if you've completed the Training Wheels Protocol," Karen reminded him, making Spider-Man's ears burn. Fortunately, her tone was more playful than condescending. "Activating reconnaissance drone."

Peter was surprised to feel a small push against his chest. He looked down (or up...? Spatial relations are hard to describe while upside-down) at the little spider symbol in the center of his costume to find that it was moving. He watched in disbelief as the mechanized arachnid popped itself free from the fabric, leaving a small indention in its place, then sprung off his chest with a tiny trill. The drone buzzed around his head a few times before stopping in front of his face, hovering an inch from Spider-Man's nose.

"Holy crap," he scoffed, giving the little guy a small poke with his finger. "My spider symbol has been a tiny flying robot this entire time? That is the coolest thing I've ever seen!" He flinched, shooting a few glances at the men prowling the borders, then lowered his voice back to a whisper. "Sorry. He's amazing. I love him."

"There are lots of weapons stored in the northernmost shack," Karen noted, dialing the image up in his viewfinder and showing him an x-ray of the inside. "Would you like to send your drone to take an inventory of what we're up against?"

Peter shook his head. "No, let's send him east. Maybe he can find the others and lead them my direction."

"The drone can only fly three miles out from the suit at the very max. Any farther than that and our signal with it will be lost."

"So just keep him within that radius. It can't hurt to have an extra pair of eyes buzzing around out there. Maybe the Avengers have been three miles ahead of me this entire time, and this is how I'll finally end up finding them."

"Good call."

The drone gave a shrill warble of agreement, then whizzed past Peter's ear, making the invisi-bubble ripple as his metal body broke through the veil. Spider-Man watched the drone bumble obediently away until the foliage obscured him from sight, wondering if his tiny new friend deserved a name as well. Then he turned back to face the secret jungle lair, remembering that there were more pressing matters at hand.

With his plan in full effect, Peter thought it best to retreat back to the safety of his tree before one of the many goons standing guard caught wind of him. He couldn't warn the Wakandans or the Avengers of their enemy's sneaky gimmick if he was dead or captured. But just as he was about to reel himself out of the bubble, a large group of men marching out of the garrison closest to him caught his eye. The man heading the pack was particularly interesting: he had a short cape trailing off his shoulders and a mask that looked similar to the one Peter remembered the Black Panther wearing, with little ear details sticking out at the top and menacingly cold eye-lenses. Spider-Man could guess from context that he was important—probably the group's leader.

The masked men formed a semi-circle around the bonfire. The man in the cape stood at the peak of the crescent, holding a spear with three sharp prongs at the end in his hand. He began to address the crowd loudly in a language Peter couldn't understand. Peter listened to him ramble with growing unease, wondering if they were planning another attack.

"Karen, can you translate what he's saying?"

"Not entirely. Just a few phrases. Wakandans have kept the majority of their culture a secret from the rest of the world, including their language."

"Just tell me what you can."

The A.I. paused, drinking in the speaker's bold exclamations and running them through all her systems."He's saying that King T'Challa is a renegade, that he isn't right for the throne. He believes it's their duty to save Wakanda from his reign. I'm not sure what he's saying now. Something about killing someone as a threat or warning."

Peter's heart skipped a beat. "They're gonna kill someone? Who? When?"

"I don't know."

His eyes followed the man as he paced back and forth before his army. He felt his forehead begin to sweat and his tongue turn sour. Whoever or whatever this guy was, he was obviously incredibly dangerous. He glanced down at his wrist, fingering the triggers on his palm.

"Okay...okay," he breathed.Peter knew what he had to do.

But wow, was it stupid.

Before he could change his mind, Spider-Man let the web-line holding him to the branch slip through his fingers. His stomach turned somersaults as he dropped towards the ground; the wind howled like fire in his ears. At just the right moment, he hooked a thread to the trunk of a sycamore that stood beside one of the barracks and whipped himself on to the rooftop, rolling ungracefully in attempt to try to dull the landing like he always saw spies do in action movies. It still kind of hurt, but he was quiet enough that no one noticed him. He rubbed at his raw shoulder with a quiet groan, then crawled close to the scratchy planks until he had a clear view of the group and their outspoken leader, his eyes just barely peeking over the apex of the roof. Being so close to the ninja men again with their deadly weapons and freaky masks made Peter's spine bristle, but he held his ground.

"Sifumene ibhinqa e-Dora Milaje," the man continued. "IUmfazi olihlazo."

Exhaling slowly, Spider-Man extended his arm out in front of his body. Only got one good shot at this, he thought. Hope I'm close enough. He pointed his web-shooter at the pacing figure, aiming for his lower legs, then carefully folded his middle fingers to a specific pressure point his palm trigger. With a small click, a black dot fired from the device, sailed through the air, and landed on the man's ankle. Nobody flinched. Peter watched until the tiny tracer had skittered out of sight underneath the dark fabric of his suit. Then he rolled on to his back and pumped his fist in the air triumphantly.

"Yes! Haha! I got him! I have always wanted to use one of those." He ducked down and pulled up the tracking screen installed in his web-shooter, which startled him by springing from his wrist as a colorful hologram. There wasn't a map for him to follow since there weren't any maps of Wakanda available, but it did show where the perp was in relation to him and gave the number of yards there were between the two of them. Satisfied, he closed out of the display and fought back a dorky grin. Sometimes Mr. Stark's tech was just too damn cool.

Unfortunately, his giddiness didn't last. Spider-Man was considering which course of exit was best to take now that the spider-tracer was planted, when a sharp cry met his ears. The sound came from directly below him and made him tense in alarm. Peter rose upright to peer over the top of the roof. Immediately, his breath caught in his throat.

A woman was being dragged from the shack he was crouched on by two of the masked men. She was wearing a bright red uniform that was lavish with detail and metal plating. The fabric was ripped in multiple places and wet with fresh blood. He watched in dismay as they threw her to the ground before the man in the cape, who glared down at her like she was a piece of garbage. She let out a few harsh coughs before clambering to her hands and knees. The head asshole twirled his staff around his fingers as her circled her prostrate form.

"You disappoint me, Nakia," he said in English, which made Peter perk up in surprise. "You were given the choice to save your country alongside your brothers, but instead you choose to let it die by surrendering yourself to T'Challa's foolishness. A true defender of Wakanda would have seen where the truth lied and aligned themselves to the right side. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Nakia leered up at him with dark, blazing eyes. Her voice wavered in her throat, but sliced through the air with all the rage and certainty in the world.

"Y-you are a disgrace and a coward—all of you. My loyalty, unlike yours, is bound to my people and my king. I will never stop fighting for them. King T'Challa and the Dora Milaje will find you, and they will kill you for what you've done."

Barely an instant after the words left her lips, the man whacked her across the face with his staff. She fell to the earth, hissing in pain, blood dripping from the gash through her cheek. Peter flew to his feet with a gasp. All his fear of being spotted dissolved into the wind.

"I take no pleasure in this," the cruel man insisted. He stepped towards the fire and held the sharp tips of his spear in the flames until they were red-hot. "But an example must be made so that the the once proud nation of Wakanda will know what happens to spineless dogs of the crown."

He turned to approach her, the surrounding ninjas watching on in cold silence. He's going to kill her, Peter realized.Horror flooding through his veins, Peter broke into a sprint down the rooftop. Karen was saying something urgently inside his head, but he didn't hear it.

Spider-Man fired a thread of webbing on to the branch of the closest tree and launched himself towards the center of the semi-circle, limbs flailing as he fell through the air. Buoying low on the web-line, he whisked between the masked men and scooped the injured woman off the ground before their leader could reach her, causing everyone to yell in alarm.

"Sorry! No murdering allowed before midmorning brunch!" he cried. The man with the staff stumbled back in disbelief as the red figure flew by with his prisoner in tow. He watched him swing across the clearing into the canopy of a large mango tree.

"Sisihogo sani?" the woman he held shrieked. "W-what's happening?" Peter dropped into the nook of the boughs and staggered into a landing, releasing her from the awkward grip he had around her torso. She fell against the branches, yelping in pain, then blinked up at the strange boy with wide eyes.

"Oh crap, I'm sorry!" he exclaimed. "Are—are you okay? That was so bad. I'm sorry, I didn't know what to—I just—oh god. You're bleeding."

Nakia gazed up at him like his face was inside-out, which seemed pretty appropriate in the given the situation. Her head shook back and forth in a fearful and flustered way. "You—what are—?" she glanced down at the ground far below, then back up to him. "You saved me? Why? W-what are you? Who are you? You're not of Wakanda."

"Y-yeah, I know, I can explain, I just—"

A holler sounded from the forest floor, followed by Peter's spidey sense going haywire. He ducked and tackled Nakia from the tree as a slew of explosions set the timber ablaze, drenching them both in nauseating heat. He barely managed to snag a thread to a neighboring pine to buffer the drop, which saved them from crashing to the earth from thirty feet up, but did not spare them from nose-diving straight into a mud pit. Gasping, the mud-soaked pair turned to see the entire army of sinister men barreling towards them like savage wolves, armed to the tooth. Spider-Man slung Nakia's arm over his shoulder and took off in the opposite direction, hoping she wasn't too hurt to run like hell.

"Raincheck! Explanations on the go!"

---

Iron Man buzzed above the world in a dark haze. His eyes were red and aching with exhaustion. His head throbbed with rhythmic agony. He couldn't remember how long he'd been out here, combing desperately through the endless swathe of trees, blasting down to the ground only to be met with stinging disappointment, fighting the sick feeling in his stomach and the fatigue weighing over him like iron chains. It must have been at least six hours. Six fruitless, Peter-less hours. He wondered how much longer either of them could hold out.

"I'd like to remind you again that the armor can continue searching for Peter without you inside it, boss," FRIDAY murmured hesitantly. Her voice made his eyelids snap back open. Consciousness returned to him like a kick in the gut. He gritted his teeth behind his helmet.

"Can it, FRIDAY. Just keep me posted on the thermal scans, let me know if anything promising shows up."

"Yes boss."

Rhodey's restored War Machine armor hovered beside him, an empty shell without an owner. The Wakandans had made the once rutty and battle-scarred suit look brand new, which almost felt uncanny. He hoped Rhodes was managing his way around the uneven terrain alright with just his leg braces.

Speak of the devil, at that very moment, a trio of hot spots suddenly flickered into existence across his monitor. Stark immediately redirected his repulsors and rocketed towards the ground, the War Machine armor trailing close behind. Within seconds, the three individuals came into view.

It wasn't Peter, but for once he was okay with that. Tony whipped his feet and palms to point towards the earth, stirring the dense foliage and causing the pedestrians to wince. Landing among the undergrowth, Stark allowed his helmet to peel back and returned his friend's hollow smile.

"No luck?" Rhodey asked, swatting at the gnats nibbling at his ears.

Tony shook his head slowly. "N-no, um—not yet. But, hey, I brought you a present."

The silver armor descended in front of him, and Rhodes' eyes lit up like a kid's on Christmas. "Aw, hell yeah. Hello beautiful." He stepped eagerly into the open suit, his grin disappearing behind the metal mask. "Now that's what I'm talking about. Man, have I missed this." He stretched his limbs inside the familiar cocoon and floated to Tony's side. "I'm never walking again."

Stark grinned halfheartedly, grateful for his comrade's familiar company after so many hours of solitude. Then he shot a quick glance over James' shoulder to address the rest of the search party. "What's the situation as of now? Has anyone found anything?"

Scott Lang, decked out in his full Ant-Man costume, stared awkwardly at the ground in silence, unsure what to say. Okoye, on the other hand, gazed at him with cold, level eyes.

"We found a piece of fabric and some blood we think may be his many hours ago," she stated, "but nothing since then. King T'Challa and two others are following a potential lead, but he has ordered the rest of us back to the city to regather our strength."

Stark's heart seized. "You're giving up? Already? He hasn't even been lost a full day, and you're already throwing in the towel?" He was well aware of how hypocritical he was being, but he didn't care. His voice shook with every word.

"No one is throwing away anything, Mr. Stark. We are in no condition to fight the Hatut Zeraze should they find us out here. We are all in need of food and sleep. We will return to Birnan Zana to rest, then decide how to continue the search from there."

"You do realize he could die while you're all taking your sweet time getting your beauty rest?" he snapped, jerking away and setting his jaw. Lang let out an uncomfortable cough in response.

"Tony," Rhodes warned, lifting up his face mask, but Okoye didn't flinch.

"I know you want your friend safe. We all do. My best friend was taken from me by these men, and the fact that you might have to endure that same pain haunts me. But I will not risk losing anyone else out here. Neither will the king."

"I'll keep searching with you," Rhodey assured him, laying a hand on his shoulder. Stark exhaled in attempt to retain his composure, turning to offer his loyal friend a dismal but grateful smile. And yet, he found that he couldn't; with one look at his face, Tony immediately understood what General Okoye was talking about. Rhodes was absolutely exhausted: expression desolate, eyes scrawled with red veins and ringed with dark circles. A quick revisit to Lang and Okoye's faces awarded the same conclusion: the three of them were screwed if they happened across the enemy in their current state. As much as it sickened him to his core, Stark had to agree: they needed to stop searching. He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut, then shrugged Rhodes' hand off his shoulder.

"No, it's okay. You all go ahead. I'll let you know if I find anything."

Tony marched away from them stiffly. Rhodey winced at his reckless resolve.

"You know I'm not going back without you. You look just as shitty as we do. If I'm stopping for a break, then so are you."

"I'm not going back until I find the kid," he breathed.

"You know the likelihood of him surviving the night is minuscule," Okoye said coldly. "And you are not helping him if he did by staggering around out here like a wounded animal waiting to be killed. The best thing for you to do is rest, get your mind right, and wait to see if the king's lead yields any—"

"I am not going back!" Stark shouted lividly. "I don't give a shit what any of you say! I don't care how slim the odds are, how shitty I look, or how often you remind me that the kid's probably already dead. I'm staying out here until I find him, no matter how long that takes!"

Seething, Stark whirled around with his fists balled at his sides, the Iron Man helmet crawling back over his face. Everyone watched the Avenger helplessly, knowing well there was no point in trying to stop him. He took one determined step forward, preparing to return to the skies, then immediately froze. Behind the mask, Tony gaped in shock.

Humming softly, hovering mere inches from his face, was a tiny metal object. It had insect-like eyes, eight skinny legs, and was shaped in a remarkably distinctive way. The little robot gave a tiny squeak of salutation. Upon recognizing the familiar device, Stark practically melted with joyful disbelief.

"What the hell? What's that?" Scott asked nervously. "Don't tell me Wakanda has freakin' flying spiders now. I'll be catching the first boat out of here."

Rhodey eyed his stone-still friend bemusedly. "Tony, what's up? You okay?"

"It's—that's—that's his," he stuttered out. "That's the drone from his suit."

Okoye's fierce features softened in a spur of sudden hope. "Spider-Man? That's his device?"

At that moment, three definitive thoughts flashed through Tony's mind at once. First and foremost: Holy shit. Peter is alive. The kid is alive! Thank the freaking heavens! Secondly: Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. How the hell did he send the drone out to find me? He's only supposed to have access to that feature after he's completed the Training Wheels Protocol, which I know for a fact he hasn't. What's going on? Then, almost instantly, he reeled back to: Oh my god, who cares, the kid is alive. He sent the drone to lead me to him. That means I can find him. I can find Peter.

As if on cue, the spidery device whipped around and began buzzing back the way it had come from. Smiling authentically for the first time in what felt like centuries, Tony fired up his repulsors and blasted after it, not caring whether anybody followed him. The three others watched Iron Man take off in silent disbelief, mulling in a similar mix of excitement, doubt, and confusion.

As he tailed the drone through the endless forest, Stark pushed down all the lingering wariness still festering inside him. He fought back the dark thoughts pressing in his mind. Instead of focusing on the thousands of terrible what-ifs that the spider-drone could lead him to, Tony forced himself to fixate on one thing, and one thing only:

Peter is alive and waiting for me. Hang tight, kid. I'm coming for you.

---

"How do you carry a human being?!"

Spider-Man swung messily from tree to tree, lugging Nakia under his arm like a lanky Pillow Pet. The stampede of bloodthirsty anarchists were hot on their heels, chucking bombs and spears and all sorts of insane weapons at them and setting Peter's spidey sense on constant tingle mode. The whole situation was chaotic, especially now that he'd resorted to carrying Nakia as he zipped through the air on cables of webbing. Every way he tried to hold her felt ridiculous and weird, and her screams of terror certainly weren't reassuring. But limping across the forest floor wasn't fast enough; thus, gripping her around the middle and switching her weight from shoulder to shoulder it was.

"You could make a big sack out of webbing and carry her in that," Karen suggested unhelpfully. Nakia shouted something Peter assumed wasn't PG and dug her fingers into his arm.

"No! Do not do that!" she pleaded. Peter insisted that he wouldn't, then looked ahead with a gasp. Their path was blocked by a massive fallen tree, and the fastest way around was the by far the worst. Peter cursed and flung Nakia above the rotting wood, then rolled along the ground underneath it. He caught her in a heap on the other side, stumbling back into his clumsy swinging regime as she shrieked and kicked. Now he really, really understood what being Tarzan felt like.

"This isn't working!" Spider-Man cried. He glanced around frantically, hearing a bullet zip past his ear and another by his leg. Holes peppered the bark and undergrowth in front of them. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter spotted a dark cove of bushes dotted with colorful flowers, and a lightbulb flickered on inside his head. Using their combined momentum, Spider-Man whipped around the closest tree trunk and catapulted them into the brush. They tumbled head-over-heels through the sticky leaves. Nakia sat up dazedly among the flowers, coughing. She gripped her side in her hand and moaned.

"Ugh," Peter grimaced, poking gingerly at his shoulder. He turned to Nakia, panting. "Are you alright?"

"This is pointless," she wheezed. "We can't escape them. They will find us here and kill us both."

Spider-Man nodded. "Y-yeah, most definitely." He winced as the sound of stomping boots and spiteful yelling grew louder, then slowly dragged himself back to his feet. "Which is why you're going to stay here, and I'm going to lead them away from you."

Nakia lifted her gaze to his sharply. "What? Are you crazy? No, I forbid it. We'll think of something else. They will kill you."

"They've got to catch me first," he said, trying to mask his crippling fear behind a smug grin. "And anyways, we don't have time. You're hurt; you need to stay here and stay hidden. Once I lose them, I'll come back to get you, and we can find our way out of here together."

"You don't listen!" she hissed. "You are but a boy, and I demand that you stay here!"

She made a grab for his arm, but he jerked out of her reach. The enemy was nearly upon them, and his spidey sense was growing more and more intense with every passing second. He had to go now. Peter turned to Nakia with one more uneasy glance.

"I'll be back!" he promised. Then he bolted out of the dense bushes, knocking many flowers from their stems. Nakia gazed after the red figure as he disappeared among the trees with striking disbelief, unable to comprehend the stranger's incredible bravery and stupidity.

As soon as the army came thundering into view, Peter started hopping up and down and waving his arms in the air. "Hey losers! Over here! Do those ugly-ass masks obscure your vision or something? 'Cause you haven't hit me once! And I bet half a bag of soggy popcorn that none of you ever will!"

For better or for worse, his goading seemed to work. The whole battalion immediately swerved to charge at him, raising their weapons in anticipation. Suave arrogance was replaced by adrenalized terror, and Spider-Man darted in the opposite direction, blood surging. Within moments, zings and pops of atypical gunfire cascaded upon him, some of which puffed into small explosions while others bloomed with eerie gas. Peter yelped and took to the trees again, ducking and twisting as the freaky bullets rained.

"Karen! They really want my soggy popcorn!"

"The drone has found Mr. Stark," Karen replied, opening a small screen in his viewfinder that pictured a close-up of Iron Man's mask. "It is leading him here now. Just hang on."

Hope blossomed inside his chest. Peter broke into a smile. "It—it did? He is? Haha! Yes! I knew my little Droney would come in major clutch one way or anoth—"

The tree he was swinging on suddenly erupted into a ball of fire. Spider-Man was thrown sideways. He crashed to the ground, flaming wood chips bouncing off his body. His ears ached and his head spun. The air tasted metallic. He lied still among the grass and seedlings for a moment: blinking, dazed.

He knew he had to get up. Peter managed to crawl behind a clump of bulbous roots. There was something wrong with his muscles. They felt knotted and stiff all of sudden, and with every painful breath he sucked into his lungs, it became harder to move. It must be something in the gas, he realized. He pressed his back against the natural blockade, smothering a cough in the crook of his arm. Anxiety coiled in his gut as he sat there, panting rapidly, listening for movement, waiting for a spear to stab him from behind. The swirling smoke stung his eyes and throat.

A minute passed. Other than footsteps receding farther and farther away, Peter heard nothing that suggested there were any threats nearby. He wanted to believe the signs, but the gnawing feeling that something's eyes were drilling into the back of his head had settled back over him. Mindful of the haze clinging to his brain and the immobility inflicting his body, Peter decided to stay put, praying that Mr. Stark got there soon.

Hardly a second later, his spidey sense went off like an air horn, and a shadow descended over him. Peter panicked and tried to make a break for it. He was immediately rewarded with what felt like a crowbar beaning him in the back of the head. He hit the ground hard, gasping. He thought he felt blood dripping down his neck as he fumbled on to his back with strained, jumbled movements. He lifted his gaze to the man looming over him, trembling.

"You are one of the American fighters that T'Challa requested aid from, aren't you?" he asked coldly. The man in the cape was much more terrifying up close. The soulless eyes of his mask seemed to sear straight through his skull. He spun the deadly staff in his hand as Spider-Man tried to scramble away from him, stumbling backwards on his palms and feet. Peter raised his wrist to blind the man with webbing, but one of the two goons that flanked him stomped on his shoulder and pressed a knife to his throat, making him cry out in pain. The raw flesh burned and he could feel the jagged teeth digging into his skin.

"You are pitiful. You will meet the same fate that will soon befall them. If Nakia won't be made an example, I suppose you'll have to do." He turned his back to him, marching towards the burning trees. "Akili, dispose of him."

The first thought that struck him was:They didn't find Nakia. She's safe. Thank God. Then he felt the man tighten his grip on the hilt of the knife in preparation to slit his throat, and remembered: But oh, wait, crap. Now I'm going to die. Gosh dangit. By that point, his muscles were almost completely petrified. He could only lie there, stricken with helplessness as one masked enemy held him down and the other knelt low to kill him. Spider-Man held his breath.

In the next second, a neck was ripped open, gushing blood across the dark earth and lush undergrowth. But the neck was not his own. Instead, a wild shriek tore through the air, and the man with the knife was knocked off him and tackled to the ground. Peter heard him wail with fear. It took the teenager a moment to realize that he wasn't drowning in his own blood, and a moment longer to slowly sit up in a bewildered daze. He turned to find his attempted murderer pinned beneath a jet-black monster, whose teeth were plunged deep into his throat. He watched in horror as the creature tore the flesh from his neck. A scarlet pool formed around his body as quickly as the tips of his fingers stopped twitching. The second goon screamed something incoherent, and the monster sprung over Peter in one leap, letting loose a vicious roar. That was more than enough to send him fleeing into the brush. He barreled past his leader, who stood glaring at Spider-Man from a distance. Any moment now, he expected him to rush forward and finish the job. Then voices sounded from somewhere not too far off, causing him to glance over his shoulder. With a spiteful curse, the man in the cape turned and vanished among the trees, gone like a vampire at the break of day. Peter was left heaving on the ground, the red circle ringed around the body to his right inching closer and closer to his feet.

"W-what the hell?" he stammered out, breathless. Instantly, the black monster turned on him. Peter recoiled with a yelp. The wide, greenish-yellow eyes met his own, and a chilling growl rolled inside its throat. The realization made him gasp. It's the thing that chased me. The thing that wanted to eat me before. Had it been stalking him this whole time? He hadn't gotten a clear look at it while he'd been plowing through the forest like a bull in a china shop, but now he recognized what the monster really was. The truth didn't quell his fear in the slightest.

It was a panther. A big, black panther like the one from the Jungle Book movie. Its sable fur shimmered like velvet in the sunlight and its lips were grisly with the blood of its latest kill. Peter watched the red saliva trickle from its fangs and whiskers, heart racing, trying to remember what the panther's name in the movie had been, then felt his stomach drop as the large creature stepped towards him.

"Oh no—p-please no," he begged, quaking from head to toe. He couldn't run away. He couldn't even crawl away. In light of his predicament, Peter did the only thing he could do: curl into a little ball and wait to be ripped to shreds. He sat hiding his eyes as the panther walked up to him, growling deeply.

"Please," he whispered through his fingers. Every breath that breached his lips trembled. He flinched when something touched him, expecting it to be a mouthful of fangs sinking into his throat or a row of claws slicing through his belly. Instead, it was the top of the panther's head. It nudged him again, then again, and Peter grew puzzled when no gory death followed either. He squeaked when on the fourth nudge, the big cat shoved him over. He shrunk feebly against the ground, gritting his teeth. The thunderous growl was deafening as the panther stood over his defenseless form.

"N-nice kitty," he whimpered. Something rough and wet lapped at his cheek through the fabric of his mask. He opened his eyes to find the black panther's face an inch from his own. A long, pink tongue was peeking from its mouth and licking his forehead. When Spider-Man still sat motionless with terror, thinking the beast was simply tasting him before hollowing out his insides, the panther leaned down and nuzzled its massive head into his neck. Peter nearly shrieked because the touch startled him and also kind of tickled. The large predator continued to rub and nudge at him, acting less like a ruthless killing machine and more like a house cat requesting to be petted.

"What's...happening?" Peter asked nervously. "Are y-you a nice kitty? Are you not—not going to eat me?" Although he was still shivering, Spider-Man allowed himself to sit upright. As soon as he did, the curious creature pressed its nose into his hand, and he gave its head a reluctant stroke. It growled loudly in response. Peter considered that maybe the sound wasn't actually growling, but purring. A shy smile spread across his face as he petted the black panther, and it nuzzled affectionately at his ribs.

"Y-you're—heh, you're just a big ol' kitty-cat, aren't yah? You're like a bigger, scarier version of Murph." His grin suddenly dropped, and his gaze wandered back to the dead man lying at his side. His eyes fell to the gaping esophagus and the blood oozing out and saturating the dirt. He felt a gag rise up in his throat, but turned away and swallowed it down nauseously.

"That wasn't, uh...that wasn't very nice, what you did," Peter said, grimacing. "Was that, like, on purpose? Y'know, killing the guy who was gonna kill me? Were you trying to protect me or something? Is that why you've been following me?"

The panther stared at him calmly without replying, whisking its tail along the ground. Then it buried its head into his neck again, making Peter start and giggle. He assumed that was the closest thing he was going to get to a "yes". The panther was like a big, scary, jungly guardian angel. He was running his fingers through its surprising soft fur when a twig suddenly snapped, and both of them perked up in alarm.

At that moment, three figures emerged from the dense foliage. They were panting lightly and speckled with mud and leaves. Peter's eyes lit up with elation and disbelief. He recognized who the men were, but the sight was certainly an unexpected surprise.

"Cap?" Peter said, blinking. "Holy crap, I totally forgot you were here!"

Behind the layer of filth, the legendary Steve Rogers was sporting some killer five o'clock shadow and a very dark Captain America costume—the first thing that popped into his mind was lumberjack mixed with cologne commercial model—but somehow that wasn't the most startling thing about the trio. Not only was the king of Wakanda himself a member of the group—T'Challa, decked out in his stunning Black Panther suit—but so was a man Peter hadn't seen since the fight in Germany, and who he had certainly not anticipated on being here. Unsurprisingly, his eyes were trained on the murderous beast standing beside the scrawny kid and were wide as saucers.

"Uh," he stammered, "am I the only one concerned about the big, evil cat about to eat him?"

King T'Challa took off his mask and crouched down to the ground, smiling widely. "Ikati, darling, I thought you were dead. Yiza apha."

The black panther immediately scampered up to meet him, rubbing against his legs as he scratched at her chin. Peter thought it was just about the cutest thing in the entire world and had never regretted not having his camera phone on him so badly.

"Oh, it's yours," the Winter Soldier said. "Right, of course."

Ignoring the happy reunion, Captain America let out a sigh of heavy, tangible relief. After so many hours of restless searching, to finally find the disheveled kid sitting there on the forest floor—muddy and scraped up but not lying cold and dead—was beyond refreshing. He didn't know what he would've told Stark had this situation gone otherwise. He couldn't wait to see the look on his face. Spider-Man watched a weary smile pull at Steve's lips as he reached up and tapped at the comm device in his ear.

"Guys, we found him. He's here. He's alive."

---

Tony swore that as soon as he was back in Wakanda's labs, he would upgrade the spider-drone so that it'd be able to fly faster than a damn turtle on a treadmill walking through molasses.

He'd been hovering impatiently beside it as it buzzed through the woods for about five minutes now, scanning the surrounding area, listening for movement, knowing that every second longer it took him to the reach the kid increased his chances of being killed. He was seriously considering just analyzing its relative flight trajectory and gunning it towards the perceived destination, when the drone suddenly banked left. He slowed and watched it skeptically. Well that's a first, he thought. Right as he turned to follow it, six distant blobs of red materialized in his viewfinder, shrinking and morphing as they passed behind trees.

Stark's muscles coiled instantly; all caution was abandoned, replaced instead with painful hope. He grabbed the drone out of the air and shot towards the blobs, buffeting the undergrowth beneath him.

He saw Peter Parker before the kid saw him. It was quite the view to absorb. He was walking with Cap, one of the Dora Milaje warriors that he didn't recognize, King T'Challa, who was casually strolling beside a real black panther and scratching at its ears (because, y'know, that was normal), and Barnes. Seeing the kid alive after so much intensely focused worrying was more relieving than he could articulate, but that didn't stop him from noticing who he was talking to. The sight made Tony stiffen so sharply he almost lost equilibrium and face-planted into the dirt.

"Can you feel this?"

"No."

"This?"

"No."

"How about this?"

Bucky snorted amusedly. "It doesn't matter where you touch it, it can't feel anything. I can sort of feel the vibrations where its attached to my shoulder, but only barely."

"That is so awesome! Did it, like, hurt? Like, getting it put on? Can you take it off? What's it made of? Do you have to be extra careful not to break people's hands when you high-five them? Can I high-five you right now?"

Steve gave Spider-Man a nudge right as Iron Man descended from the canopy and landed by the massive tree in front of them. No one needed to see Peter's face to know he was smiling from ear to ear.

"Mr. Stark!" he called excitedly.

"Nakia?" a voice cried out. Stark looked over his shoulder to see War Machine stepping down to the ground, holding Okoye under the arms. He hadn't even noticed that they'd been following him. The minute her feet reached the earth, she sprinted towards her.

"Okoye," Nakia said, her voice breaking. The two met in the middle, hugging fiercely and weeping with joy.

"I thought they'd killed you," Okoye sobbed. "I thought they'd taken you like the others, and—"

"It is alright, yam nkokeli. I am fine. I am here."

While the two Dora Milaje warriors embraced one another, Spider-Man jogged up to meet Iron Man, not slowing down despite his stiff limbs' protests. The petrifying gas had not fully worked itself out of his system just yet, but he tried his best to hide the limp. He stopped when he was in front of him, panting softly.

"Uh, h-hi Mr. Stark," he said. A timid smile was hidden behind his mask.

"Hey kid," Tony replied. He retracted the helmet off his face and took a moment to digest the teen's humorously bedraggled appearance. He was completely caked in mud, almost to the point of being unrecognizable. His suit was flecked with frays and tears. There was a whole ecosystem of leaves and twigs and other sorts of jungle debris sticking to him like he'd been sleeping in the dirt. He looked like he'd been living out here as a forest hermit for years rather than just one day, and he probably smelled like it, too.

"Are you okay?" Stark asked.

Peter nodded quickly. His hands fidgeted at his sides.

"Good," he replied, biting the inside of his cheek. Tony didn't know how to communicate how glad he was that the kid wasn't dead without it being weird. In a sudden rush, a powerful and unfamiliar urge came over him. Maybe it wasn't totally unfamiliar; maybe he'd felt it before, but he'd gotten so good at repressing it that it had become something that seemed foreign. Regardless, it was there, startling and evident:

He wanted to hug the kid. He wanted to wrap the little idiot in his arms and hold him close and let him know how much it would have destroyed him if he'd been killed. He wanted Peter to understand just how much he meant to him, and that he was so sorry for letting this happen.

Stark could hardly believe how overwhelming the feeling was. Perhaps Peter was experiencing something similar; he'd stepped towards him expectantly when he'd first ran up to meet him but had stopped himself at the last second, likely due to Tony's ban on hugs from the previous time he'd tried embracing him. Something inside him stung at the thought. For the first time since his initial encounter with the kid back at his apartment in Queens, Tony Stark considered hugging Peter.

But the amount of eyes watching him at that moment shied him away from the idea. He couldn't make himself follow through on something so personal when there was an audience. Peter must have read his awkward silence as judgement or disappointment, as his head was hung with shame.

"Mr. Stark, I'm so sorry—"

"You know as well as I do that you're not the one who needs to be apologizing here," Tony interrupted him. He might not be willing to hug the kid, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let him get away with that shit. Peter lifted his gaze to Stark's reluctantly.

"Sorry. I guess we were both being kinda stupid, huh?"

"Tipping a little heavier towards my end," he snorted. "But yeah, sure."

"Are we good?" Spider-Man asked, scratching the back of his head. Tony couldn't repress the soft smile that overtook his face.

"Yeah, kid. We're good." He casted a sideways glance at the six other individuals (and the giant freaking cat) watching them, clearing his throat a bit too loudly, then lifted his hand in front of Peter's face. "I believe this is yours, yes?"

His fingers folded back to reveal the tiny, spider-shaped drone sitting on his metal palm. It hummed to life and gave a jubilant trill.

"Droney!" Peter exclaimed, cradling the device in his hands. "Hey buddy!" Then he looked back at Tony, hunching his shoulders. "Oh. I'm going to have to explain this, aren't I?"

"Yep. You've got lots of explaining to do."

"Right," he murmured, guiding the drone back to its place on his suit. It snuggled into the indention with a satisfying click. "A lot happened. I think the suit's a little busted. I tried to fix it, but...something else sorta ended up happening, but I think it's still not fully working right. I don't know. It's just—whoo, everything was just so crazy, y'know? I thought you guys would never find me. I slept in a tree. And fell in a river. There was a tarantula on my neck at one point. And I saw monkeys! Like, real, wild monkeys! It was exactly like Planet Earth except not on TV!"

"Why don't we walk and talk?" Tony chuckled, wrapping an arm around the kid's back. The rest of the crew took the cue and began following behind them. Up close, it was easier to see just how much Peter had been through. His skin was littered with gashes and dried blood. The suit had been slashed open all across his lower legs and arms. There was a patch of particularly painful-looking blisters on his shoulder that Tony for sure wanted to get checked out. Clearly Peter's definition of being "okay" was fundamentally different than his own.

"Do you know what a fig is?" Spider-Man asked. "I think I ate, like, seven hundred figs. Is that bad? They were weird. They don't taste anything like the filling in fig newton bars. I didn't really like them, but I was starving. I probably shouldn't have eaten so many though. Now I kinda never want to eat one again."

Tony Stark never thought the kid's incessant rambling could bring him so much joy. He didn't realize how much he'd missed it until now. He decided to wait until they were back in Birnan Zana to discuss the less fun things, choosing instead to just listen and let Peter jabber on about his nutty jungle misadventure.

The two Dora Milaje warriors were glad the young hero was safe. Rhodey was happy to see his old friend smiling again. The king of Wakanda was curious about how Stark and the boy were related, while the pair of World War II veterans wanted to know the history behind their unlikely bond. But above it all, everyone was just relieved that Spider-Man had finally been found, and that the light had returned to Tony Stark's eyes.

T'Challa called a pilot to pick everyone up and fly them back to the capital city. The Avengers and the Wakandans were grateful for the break. Now that Peter was back with them and safe, the group felt almost whole again.

---

I know it gets rushed at the conclusion but I just didn't want to end another chapter with Tony not finding Peter and everything not being okay :P Unfortunately I won't be much nicer to Pete in the next one...yeet

Four things:

1. I hope I wrote Bucky alright lol I've never actually written him before

2. The language I used for the Wakandans is the same one used in Civil War: Xhosa. I don't speak it so I used google translate. I'm sorry if what they're saying doesn't make any sense, I was just trying to give it some kind of authenticity. If anyone out there does speak it, I'd love some tips!

3. HOLY. FRICKIN. FRICK FRACK. THAT INFINITY WAR TRAILER? WHAT IN THE ASS? IM SO SHOOK? I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAD TO WATCH THAT SPACE PLUM SLAM MY BABY SPIDER TO THE GROUND WITH MY OWN TWO EYES? This movies WILL end me

4. OKAY. that spider-man: into the spiderverse trailer also? Have ya'll seen it? It looks SO GOOD! The animation is gorgeous, the concept looks gorgeous, miles looks gorgeous, and I can't breathe.

That's all, thanks so much for reading, see you next time :D