Author's Note: Here we go. I own nothing.

21. In Your Imagination

Piper jerked awake a breathy scream on her lips. She hated that dream, she still remembered the three SHEILD agents who had died protecting her during the Battle of New York. She hadn't been able to do anything to help them, it was about four months before she'd gotten her powers. She was shaking slightly, it had been a while since she'd had that dream. She jumped as someone laid a hand on her shoulder. She glanced up into Danny's face. He looked concerned.

"Who were they Spider?" She stared at him for a moment not realizing what he meant. He seemed to catch on to her confusion. "The agents in your dream."

"How did you know about that?" She asked swiping at her damp eyes. Danny pulled a small package of tissues out of his backpack and wordlessly handed them over. Piper managed a small smile as she pulled one out and blew her nose. He spoke as she scrubbed at her face.

"Dream walking, but it wasn't natural. It took almost all of my Chi energy to wake us up before we wound up like them." He gestured around the room and Piper looked up for the first time. Every person in the room was asleep. She blinked.

"Ok a bit unusual for everyone to fall asleep… all at the same time." She turned to Danny, standing. "You're gonna say something foreboding now aren't you?"

"Dreams are windows to the soul. Someone has slammed them all shut." Piper shivered and pulled out her phone tapping the key that connected her to JARVIS.

"You up J?" The metallic voice rang from her phone.

"For you, always." Piper smiled.

"Play the loudest Klaxon sound you can over my phone on my signal please." Piper set her phone down on the teachers desk and stuffed her fingers in her ears signaling that Danny should do the same. She gave JARVIS the signal and a loud piercing siren sounded from the phone on the desk. No one so much as twitched.

"Cut it J." She shouted and the AI shut off the siren. Piper frowned tilting Sam's head up of the desk. She poked him hard. He snored.

"Ok I'm intrigued." She said laying his head back on the desk. "J give me the status on the Avengers please." Danny raised an eyebrow at her as she began to pull off her button up shirt as the AI spoke over her phone again.

"Dr. Banner is asleep in his lab. Mr. Barton is asleep in the firing range. Thor is off world. Miss Romanoff is asleep in her room. Mr. Rogers is asleep in his Brooklyn apartment. Your father is asleep at his work bench." Piper frowned as she pulled off her tank top revealing the Spider suit under it.

"Do me a favor and scan the rest of the city, and keep this whole inquiry on my logs, not dads." She pulled off her jeans and rolled down the sleeves of her costume. She snatched up her bag and pulled her gloves and mask out of the hidden compartment. Her phone piped back up.

"According to the Stark Industries Satellites the entirety of New York has fallen asleep. The phenomena is spreading at an exponential rate." Piper whistled as she pulled on her mask.

"That… shouldn't be possible." She turned to Danny.

"Any ideas?" Danny nodded.

"There is only one person living who could help us." Piper nodded and they headed out to the back alley of the school. Piper and Danny hopped on her spider-cycle.

"You never answered my question Spider. The SHEILD agents, who were they?" Piper sighed as she drove her bike through traffic, which was at a literal standstill.

"Agent Rodriguez, Agent Grant, and Agent Travers. Nick Fury assigned them to me before the battle of New York, so my dad would agree to help find the tesseract. They died because of me. They weren't the first though." Danny was about to ask what she meant but she didn't let him.

"So everyone in New York is asleep and the sickness is spreading out to the rest of the world. How would that be possible. A chemical bomb? Toxin in the air?" Danny shook his head.

"This isn't science, Spider. This is the realm of the mystical reaching out to our world." Piper snorted. Danny raised an eyebrow.

"Why are we talking about magic, it's kids stuff. I mean don't get me wrong I used to love it when Uncle Ben would do the quarter behind the ear trick but it's not real." Danny sighed.

"Magic is all around us." Piper laughed.

"It penetrates and binds us?" Danny nodded and Piper rolled her eyes behind her mask as she steered her bike up the side of a building to avoid the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Danny had to hold on tight so he didn't slip off the bike.

"I was quoting Danny. What most people call magic is just science we don't understand yet, like asguardian tech. Jane Foster and I have had a few conversations about it." Danny shook his head.

"Magic is more than that. Trust me. I have a friend, if anyone can help us he can. He's the sorcerer supreme, the worlds most powerful wizard. Turn here." She did, heading into Greenwich Village. Danny had her pull up to a decrepit looking warehouse.

"The most powerful wizard in the world lives here? What did he cast a don't pay the rent spell?" Danny stepped up to the house and drew a symbol Piper didn't recognize in the dust. Piper stepped forwards and ran smack into a gargoyle that hadn't been there a minute ago. She rubbed her nose and stepped back, eyes widening under her mask. Where there had been a metal sided warehouse with boarded up windows a moment before there was now a well built three story townhouse. Piper blinked slightly, Danny grinned at her.

"Cloaking device. If we call that magic, then I have a magic time piece with a one eyed troll in it." She tapped her wrist and her communicator, showing off an image of a sleeping Nick Fury. Danny rolled his eyes as the door opened. He gestured Piper inside.

"The path to enlightenment awaits." Piper entered the house and whistled lowly. It was a very beautiful house. Pedestals took up the spaces between roman columns that held up a balcony that ended in a sweeping staircase that seemed to lead into the rest of the house.

"Your friend went full on sorcerer chic when he decorated, but I'm sorry Danny, putting a box on a pedestal doesn't make it magical." She said poking said box before Danny could warn her. The box sprang to life, large tentacles springing forth. Piper shrieked and she and Danny beat the appendages back into the box. Piper panted and shrieked again as a scared hand landed on her shoulder. This time she leapt to the ceiling, clinging there like the spider she was. A man stepped out of the shadows. He was tall with dark hair and pronounced cheekbones. He was wearing a set of Asian style blue robes a deep red cloak over the top of it a necklace in the shape of an eye around his neck.

"Don't touch anything else, we already have one crisis, we don't need another one." Piper leapt down from the ceiling brushing off her costume. The intense blue green eyes looked the two teens up and down.

"Iron Fist. I'm impressed you're awake let alone her." Piper frowned as Iron Fist bowed slightly.

"Your training saved me Dr. Strange I found Spidergirl just before she could fall too deeply under the spell." Dr. Strange raised an eyebrow and made a series of complex motions with his hands. A shower of sparks in shapes of runes Piper still didn't recognize passed over her leaving behind a pulsing glow. The doctor nodded.

"She's uniquely connected to this reality. You're lucky to have this spider sense." Piper stared at him.

"Ah so a telepath? What number am I thinking of?" Dr. Strange's eyes narrowed slightly.

"First off I'm not a telepath I'm a doctor. Secondly you're not thinking of a number you're thinking of flapjacks." Piper stared after him as he began to walk up the stairs.

"There are more things than are dreamt of in your reality." Danny said and began to follow Dr. Strange up the stairs. Piper blinked after them for a moment before following them up the stairs and deeper into the sanctum.