Peter wakes up and looks around to see he's back in his home and tries to remember how he got there and what happened before that.
He gets interrupted from his thoughts when a knock at his door comes and when he opens it, he's greeted by a blue skinned, white haired new guy he's never met before. And he would definitely remember someone who had three lights coming out of his head.
"It's...you." The new guy says.
"Am I suppose to know you?" Peter wonders.
"Now you're talking to me." He replies. "Spider-Man is talking to me."
"Okay! Inside." Peter says as he drags this guy inside to talk in private as he knows his identity.
"I am Brainiac-5. Half computer, half organic lifeform, all Coluan, and, not to brag, but a 12th level intellect. My name is Querl Dox, but the Legionaries just call me Brainy." He introduces himself to Peter while looking around his home.
Peter tries wrapping his head around what he was just told as he feels like he got his head was rammed with a semi truck for some reason. "Did...did Mon-El send you?" He asks.
"Yes, yes. To make sure that your neural pathways are clear and intact." Brainy tells him, picking up some of the photo frames of him, his parents and one with Gwen. "Your brain is in truly remarkable health for someone languishing in a coma."
"Wait, did you...you say a coma?" Peter asks, completely confused.
"Did I bury the lede?" Brainy asks him. "You've been in a coma for two days."
"But...I'm at my house." Peter says as he gestured around him.
"Oh. You mean the physical manifestation of the place where your subconscious feels most comfortable?" Brainy asks and Peter is seriously confused.
"If this is a dream, how are you here?" Peter asks.
"Mom-El woke me up from hyper sleep to communicate with you on behalf of him, Supergirl, and your DEO compatriots." Brainy explain to him. "It's all 31st century technology, the only thing that could get past your mental blockade you have. It's also what's keeping you alive."
"What do you mean by alive?" Peter asks, not liking the sound of that.
"You fought Reign. Don't you remember?" Brainy asks him.
The memories then start flashing back into his mind of Reign beating him, using his own gadgets against him and even destroying his mask before dropping him off the skyscraper.
Peter grabs his head as now it feels like he was rammed into a train at full speed as the memories flood back in.
"No, this...what? She's still out there. I need to get out of here." Peter states anxious and runs to the door.
"I don't think you're listening to me." Brainy says as Peter passes him.
"If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that." Peter says as he gets to the door and tries to open it.
Peter takes a few steps back and raises his hand, waiting for his watch to transform into his suit so he can blast the door, but nothing happens.
"Can we just, maybe, relax a little bit?" Brainy asks Peter who's starting to freak out and won't calm down.
-
In reality, Peter has been placed in one of the cryosleep chambers on the Legionaries ship with a device attached to his head so Brainy can talk to him.
Brainy wakes up and looks to everyone who's waiting to hear how he's doing.
"Well, the good news is his mind is active and alert. The bad news is, he's upset and angry." Brainy tells them.
"Well, I'm sure it has to do with this whole mind prison thing." Kara says looking over Peter's still beaten form that's still healing.
"You're speaking to him right now, even as you're speaking with us?" J'onn asks.
"The crown connects to my internal AI core. It translates his brainwaves to English and sends electronic signals back to him." Brainy explains to him.
"These tanks have incredible healing power, so he just needs to rest and let it do its work." Imra promises.
"Ha. Peter rest...that's funny." Winn says knowing Peter isn't one to just relax.
"You're from the future, did you know this was going to happen?" Alex asks Mon-El and Imra.
"No, but he'll live." Mon-El promises.
"But when will he wake up?" Kara asks.
"We don't know." Mon-El tells her.
"Well, Reign is still out there. And we're one superhero down." J'onn reminds them.
"I mean, Reign's been quiet, maybe she was injured in the fight." Winn guesses.
"Let's hope. It's only a matter of time before she strikes again." Alex says and they hope he wakes up soon.
-
Later, they return to the DEO as Brainy remained with Peter mentally as it seems Reign has returned and has started terrorizing criminals throughout the city.
"She's declared war with criminality in National City." J'onn says.
"Not just against criminals, against the entire justice system." Alex adds.
"We have to stop her." Kara says, wanting to beat her for what happened with Peter.
"Without Spider-Man? You sure you're up for it?" J'onn asks her.
"I mean, we have a literal legion of superheroes." Winn says looking to Mon-El and Imra.
"I owe you all my life. And I hope you know that I would do anything I could for you. But this can't be our fight." Mon-El tells them.
"Surely we can help them somehow." Imra says.
"If we die now, we will endanger the future." Mon-El states.
"What does that mean?" Kara wonders.
"We're on a mission. Our involvement here could jeopardize that. I can tell you what we know. We know Spider-Man lives. And we know that eventually Reign will leave." Mon-El tells them.
"That's...that's all you've got?" Alex asks.
"We really don't know much at all." Imra admits.
"In the year 2455, Earth experienced a third degree extinction phenomenon." Brainy informs them.
"Humanity came together, but Earth suffered catastrophic destruction. It wasn't just life that was lost, history, culture, art, music. Mon-El taught us everything we know. From Aristotle, Shakespeare, Bon Jovi." Imra tells them.
"And even if we know the end result, we don't necessarily know how it happens." Mon-El adds on.
"So Peter lives, and Reign will leave, eventually. But in the meantime, she can slaughter thousands of people in minutes." Kara recaps everything.
"What do we do in the meantime?" Winn wonders.
"The Sundown Protocol." J'onn says and they all face him. "A highly classified contingency plan to take down Superman if ever he turns against us. Red sun grenades, sound bombs, Kryptonite darts, everything we need to take down a rogue Kryptonian."
"Clark got rid of the Kryptonite." Kara reminds him.
"And he got rid of it for a reason." Alex reminds him.
"That was before Reign. We still have the kryptonite from Coville's probe, don't we?" J'onn asks.
"The rest that Peter didn't destroy." Winn says and that isn't a lot.
"Prep what you have to." Kara says, knowing without Peter, everything is going to be needed.
-
Peter is starting to get annoyed as it seems he's trapped in his own mind as he tried to escape in any way he could think of. The windows, door, even just out the walls and it seems his mind is against him.
"This is the worst type of torture!" Peter exclaimed as Brainy is just looking around his home. "Being stuck in my home, no way out."
"Out of all the 4,237,642 versions of our first meeting that I envisioned, you calling it torture wasn't one of them." Brainy says as he starts messing with the chair across from Peter's couch where he is currently sitting.
"Okay, what are you doing?" Peter finally asks.
"Checking for brain damage. In simulacra, like the one we're in now, brain damage could present itself in any number of ways. Mildew, mold. Rats indicate neurological issues. It's just to prepare you for reality re-entry." Brainy explains to him and goes back to tearing his couch apart.
"Reality re-entry?" Peter asks.
"If you're not properly prepared when we wake you up, you could go into shock. Some people die immediately." Brainy says.
"Wait. Are you saying I'm waking up?" Peter asks, happy to be free of his four walled prison.
"Did I bury the lede again?" Brainy wonders.
Peter is just happy and walks to the doors. "Okay, anything special that I need to do?"
"Well, your home is the manifestation of your subconscious. And that door seems to be the only way in or out. My assumption, walk through it." Brainy says and Peter tries to open the door.
-
Brainy and Kara are outside the tank as it starts to get ready to wake Peter up.
"It's starting to drain. He's ready." Brainy tells Kara who waits for him to wake up.
They wait and nothing is happening.
"Peter, are you there?" Kara asks as she walks up to the glass.
"He should be fine." Brainy says, confused as the tube drains out.
-
Peter is trying to open the door and it's still not opening.
"What am I doing wrong here?" Peter asks Brainy who runs up and tries to opening the door himself and something is definitely wrong.
"You should be fine." Brainy tells Peter as he's confused.
-
"Why isn't he waking up?" Kara asks Brainy.
Brainy looks to her and he's just as confused.
-
"Will you just open?!" Peter says as he kicks at his door and it's not opening.
Brainy, for some reason, is making himself tea in Peter's kitchen.
"Your body is fine. We drained the tank, you suffered no ill-effects from the hibernation." Brainy tells him.
"Then why am I still here?!" Peter asks, full of rage.
"There's nothing wrong with your brain. We've ruled that out." Brainy tells him.
"Well, you're the brainiac here. Literally." Peter jokes, trying to calm himself as Brainy drinks the tea.
"Well, that rules out physical." Brainy says and Peter is seriously confused by this guy. "So, barring another explanation, I would have to say the only thing keeping you here is you."
Peter looks at him confused as ever with that knowledge. "I want out. This is my mind, it should be listening to me." He states while smacking his own head. "It opened earlier."
"To let me in. Going out..." Brainy starts as Peter keeps trying to punch his way out but the door keeps turning into rubber on every hit. "Different story. Is there a reason your subconscious might be preventing you from escaping? Self preservation, perhaps?"
Peter looks back to Brainy who's drinking the tea while sitting in the chair. "I'm not afraid."
"This is the first time you were this badly beaten. A few head bruises, but never like this." Brainy says and that is true.
Peter's been doing this for 15 years, never getting hurt like this. Otto hurt him, but not enough to put him in a coma. Even Scorpion's poison drained out eventually.
Peter quickly goes to where he keeps a stash of secret weapons and pulls out a complete iron version of his gauntlet he created to protect Gwen and uses it to laser the door and nothing happens.
"Fear is a logical response to that stimulus." Brainy continues as Peter continues to try and escape.
"I'm Peter Parker. I've been fighting monsters, aliens, criminals for years...I am not afraid!" Peter promises when a shockwave of blue energy blasts off him, sending everything fly, including Brainy.
Peter looks around and is shocked at what his mind did.
And wondering what his mind just did.
-
They moved Peter's uncurious body to a medical table in the ship and Kara is still waiting for him to wake up.
"Come on, Peter. Wake up." Kara begs.
"Brainy will figure it out." Mon-El promises.
"Don't overpromise. I've never dealt with someone with a mental blockade and it seems to be causing some problems." Brainy says and looks to see Kara is upset to that. "Sorry. Insensitive."
"What will happen if he stays this way?" Kara asks.
"The longer he stays unconscious, the more likely it will become permanent." Brainy says when their alerts go off.
"Reign's attacking again." Mon-El says and they run and Kara does a double take on Peter before knowing she needs to help them. He wouldn't want her there if she could help people.
"I'll be back, I promise." Kara promises and kisses his cheek before running with them and see a building on fire.
"She attacked a meth lab. The cops arrived, she attacks them, too." Brainy informs them. "I'll run another scan on Peter."
Mon-El explains how they can't interfere because they're carrying information on a way to save the future from a catastrophic event.
-
The DEO setup a fake robbery at the bank where Reign shows up, and they were ready for her.
Alex takes a red sun grenade, sending Reign flying into the wall.
"Light her up." J'onn says as they use sonic guns to hold her down and Kara drops a chain around her as Alex approaches with a chunk of kryptonite and drop it around her neck.
Reign fights back as it seems to not weaken her as much as they hoped and Reign removes the kryptonite and flies off.
Kara flies after her, only to be hit by the kryptonite as she was still carrying it, causing Kara to loose her power for a minute and Reign in the process.
-
"She shrugged that kryptonite off like it was nothing." J'onn says as they regroup at the ship.
"That was enough to incapacitate Kara. So why didn't it work on her?" Alex wonders as Kara was brought in by J'onn as she is still weakened by the kryptonite.
"The soil did hurt her, just not enough." J'onn says.
"Then we concentrate the soil. Put it straight in her bloodstream." Alex puts a plan together.
"One small hiccup. We only have one superhero, and it's gonna take two or more to fight her." Winn says.
Kara is sitting next to Peter who is still asleep and is worried he might not wake up.
"I could really use you, Peter. You and your spectacular Spider-Man knowledge. I need you back...please, Peter." Kara tells him since she needs someone watching her back, and there's no one else, besides J'onn and Alex, that she knows will always watch her back.
-
Peter is just fixing his home with Brainy wondering why.
"Why are you cleaning? None of this is real." Brainy wonders.
"I got nothing else to do. So why not?" Peter asks as he picks up a broken photo frame of him and Gwen that was taken a year or two after they started dating.
"Who is that?" Brainy wonders and watches Peter's sad smile and then puts it together himself. "An old lover?"
"My first love." Peter corrects him. "I thought I had my life planned out from that moment." He say when his mind home starts to shift and he sees a ghost like figure of himself and Gwen sitting on the couch what are laughing while eating Chinese food. "She was the one person I knew I could always rely on. And then she was taken from me." He continues and they hear maniacal laughter fill the room.
"When she died, I felt myself die. Thought everyone that I get close to was destined to die for me. Which is why I was so reluctant to being with anyone new." Peter says as his ghost self starts crying on the couch and he starts to jump through his phases of depression.
Sadness, anger, denial, more anger. Then hatred towards Spider-Man.
"I blamed the mask. Thought that's why people keep dying for me. But I also knew I couldn't give up the mask. Too many people saw it as a beacon of hope. But...then there's Skirt. She's a superhuman while I'm...I'm just a man with enhanced skills. I'm nothing compared to her. I can match her just barely. Last time we fought, she was close to beating me."
"And that's why you seemed to have engaged in a relationship with her?" Brainy asks and Peter looks to him confused to how he knows about them.
Then he remembered he's a living computer.
"When she brought you in, she barely spoke, barely moved from your side. Always found an excuse to check on you." Brainy explains to how easily it was to tell.
Peter smiles knowing how much she cares.
"I thought if I got too close to her, I'd get her killed. But then she almost got killed and I never got to tell her how I felt." Peter says and is happy to have told her how he felt.
-
In reality, Reign is attacking the prison and Kara, Mon-El, Imra, J'onn and Brainy are going in to stop her.
They play Livin on the Prayer to draw reign out of the prison and the ship emerges from the water.
"I think we got her attention." Brainy tells them.
"You don't say." Kara says as she, Imra and Mon-El face her.
"You will not interfere with my mission." Reign tells them.
"Interfering is our specialty." Mon-El tells her.
"I've only come to cleanse the sin of this world." Reign states.
"Didn't feel like starting with yourself?" Imra asks.
"I'm not of this world." Reign informs her.
"Neither are we." Mon-El says as their Legionaries rings glow and they start to fly and the hip blasts at her, dropping her to the ground.
"Engaging cannons." Brainy tells them.
-
"Aloian attack formation." Brainy says as he's sitting in the chair waving he arms around.
"What's up with you?" Peter asks.
"Oh! Sprock! Did I say that out loud?" Brainy asks and Peter sees they're fighting.
"What's happening?" Peter asks, hoping they're okay.
"Little tiny baby battle." Brainy assures him. "Actually, let's keep talking. It'll help get my mind off this life or death scenario."
"You should be focusing completely on the life or death." Peter states.
"I'm perfectly capable of multitasking." Brainy says while he's juggling the fruit from his fruit bowl. "I'm actually working on your Sunday crossword right now. Six-down is Anguillororm. Supergirl, evade!" He interrupts himself and drops the fruit.
"Go help them." Peter tells him, knowing he's gonna be here a while.
Brainy gets up and walks to the center of the living room. "For what it's worth, I'd say it seems Spider-Man has survived many heartbreaks."
"Peter Parker survived those heartbreaks." Peter corrects him. "Spider-Man was mostly the reason Peter had to go through those heartbreaks. Sometimes...I question why I am still Spider-Man."
"Supergirl said something similar a few minutes ago." Brainy says and Peter is confused. "She said that she needed Spider-Man. But she wants Peter Parker more." He explains before becoming pixels and vanishing.
Peter looks around his home and knows there's a part of him that wants to be Spider-Man all the time. The thrill, the amazing feeling, the hope he brings.
Another part of him wants to be Peter Parker full time. The safety, the heartbreak free life, but he can't.
It's Peter Parker the one who pulls through and makes Spider-Man stronger.
And it's Spider-Man who keeps Peter Parker going, knowing he can conquer anything life throws at him.
Peter looks around him and knows this life was only possible because of both sides of his life. The dark and the light.
The good and the bad.
The heroes and the villains.
Peter Parker and Spider-Man.
Peter then looks down at himself and sees he's wearing his Iron-Spider suit.
He's ready to wake up.
-
Reign sends one of the missiles back at the ship and it hits them.
"Careful, Brainy, you got precious cargo on board." Mon-El warns him.
"She knocked out the tri-cannons." Brainy tells them. "I'll need a minute to get them back online."
He flies off and the three fly down to take in Reign.
Imra starts to levitate the prison weights and throws them at Reign who uses her heat vision to stop them.
Mon-El runs at her with the concentrated dirt and Reign uses her freeze breath to stop him but Kara uses her heat vision to stop it.
J'onn comes out of the ground in his Martian form.
"Time to put you back in the hole you came from." J'onn tells her before pulling her into the ground and the two fight before coming out and J'onn drops to the ground.
Kara looks around when Reign grasps her neck using her speed and raises Kara up.
"If you defend a sinner, you must be a sinner. And I will wipe away the sin of this world. You're all too blind to see the truth." Reign states as Kara tries to pry herself free.
"Well, I'm a big fan of truth." Someone says and they look behind Reign and see Spider-Man is back in action. "But I'm a bigger fan of true justice."
"I thought you were dead." Reign says in anger.
"Like I've never heard that before." Peter says as he reveals the kryptonite and injected it into her before she flies off in pain.
-
They all return to the DEO now and Peter has been shown that he is perfectly healthy again and Kara grabs and drags him while he was roaming the halls and quickly kisses him.
"I'm so glad you're okay." Kara says and keeps kissing him.
"I'm glad I'm okay, too." Peter jokes as he kisses her.
"Am I interrupting?" Brainy asks and they both jump at the site of him.
"Oh, it's you." Peter says, looking over him.
"It's nice to meet you in real life, Spider-Man." Brainy greets and walks off.
"Should we be worried that he knows?" Kara asks.
"He figured it out while he was in my mind. We're safe." Peter assures her. "We are telling them, right?"
"Of course were telling them. Just maybe not right now. We just need to find the right time." Kara assures him.