Well, I'm back, after a long, long (long) delay. I do hope I wasn't worrying anyone. Real life has been keeping me busy, though not getting my down as it was – therapy is working wonders. Slow, subdued, but steady wonders. Plus, while I didn't get writer's block, as such, my muse stubbornly refused to be at all helpful on this chapter for a long, long time. I knew what I wanted to write, but I just couldn't quite get it onto the page. In truth, I've had trouble with this one because I wanted to round it all off in one chapter, and I wish I'd managed to do so. But honestly, I think that this probably works better than a single, sluggish, super-sized chapter (which would have taken a long time to come). So… enjoy.

It began as all things do: with light.

Carol trailed a blazing streak of white light from eyes and fists, blurred strides carrying her across the muddy turf and leaving footsteps of fire behind, as she hit the boar with a shoulder charge that would have folded a tank in half. The earth shuddered, and the boar screamed, russet slick skin writhing in agony as it sizzled like oil on a frying pan.

Deadpool followed her out of cover, almost prancing over to the crocodile-dragon, which whirled on him with supernatural speed and an earth-shaking bellow of challenge. But that bellow was cut off partway, three apparently randomly launched grenades landing in neat overlap where the shoulders met the spine, as the mercenary holstered the grenade launcher without breaking stride as he accelerated to an Olympic sprint. He leapt onto the monster's long jaw, drawing both blades and ramming them home before the dark semi-liquid skin could close over the burnt wound at the shoulder.

The third, a smaller but still towering human-like figure, darted its gaze from one of its companions to the other, surrounded by an utter cacophony. On the one side was the crack-crack-crack of repeated pistol fire and bellowing roars, and on the other were magnesium bright flashes followed by humming roars that interwove with porcine screeches – or at least, porcine screeches had they been given a certain distortion and fed through an oil-soaked bass-booster made of leather. Both were signs of how its fellows were being comprehensively put to the sword, and naturally, it turned to confront these deadly enemies.

But what it lacked in comparative size, it made up for in intelligence and predatory instinct. Which, unfortunately, was why it noticed a flicker of shadows – movement.

An impossibly wide smile, full of needle-like fangs, spread across its face.

This was going to be fun.

OoOoO

Peter tried not to fidget. He'd always been prone to fidgeting when he had nothing to do, thanks to being both naturally high-strung and brilliant enough that he was easily bored. His infection with vampirism had only made that worse. Sharpened senses and a very close brush with undeath (and worse) had made him considerably twitchier, and if anything, he'd become a quicker and clearer thinker (when he could actually focus).

Now, it was even worse because of his who-knew-what based on that weird spider bite, and oh god that had been painful, and even now he could feel them creeping and crawling over him…

He shuddered, and glanced over his shoulder at Monica and Gambit. Both were by the main gate, clustered around what had once been a keypad, and its connection to what looked like a junction box. They conferred in whispers, and only the occasional flicker and gleam of eerie blue light, escaping from the concealment of Gambit's battered brown trench coat, showed that anything odd was going on.

He was achingly curious about what they were doing, but a promise was a promise. It was his job to keep a watch out for them, and – danger-danger-danger!

Thoughts interrupted by some strange instinct that made every hair on his body stand-up, he sprang backwards. As he landed, following a neat flip, he felt the earth shudder at the force of impact, the echo in his bones telling him the size, distance, and rough shape of his opponent, like the twitches of a fly caught in a web. Before he could consider this disturbing facet of his new abilities, he instead looked up at the source of that impact. As he did, he was very quickly left feeling a distinct kinship with the fly.

"Oh my god, can this place get any creepier?"

Normally, a more experienced adventurer like Carol or Harry might have rolled their eyes at such a proclamation, while Uhtred or Diana would have been interested by a potential challenge. This was most certainly not normally.

The creature before him was dark, visible more as a great shadow than a person, with skin like oil under which misshapen muscles bulged and shifted, more on whim than on any natural position. It did not seem to move, so much as flow from one place to another, its movements utterly alien and full of a strangely liquid grace.

The only broad consistencies were in its shape; impossibly broad shouldered, with long, thick arms that culminated in broadly spread clawed hands, reaching down to a stocky waist with powerful legs, and surmounted by a stream-lined head, one that sometimes sat between the shoulders, sometimes stretching outwards into a serpentine neck, or even tapered out into a predatory muzzle. Out of that head stared two huge white eyes, blind yet apparently all-seeing, above a mouth that, whatever shape the face took, was full of fangs that varied in shape from needles to daggers.

With a chill, he realised that it wasn't looking just at him – it was looking past him, at Gambit and Monica. As he made the connection, its gaping grin widened, as if to say, "yes – if you want to protect them, you have to stand in my way. How long do you think that will take?"

Peter swallowed. Probably not very long at all.

But maybe it would be just long enough.

He stood up straight, and set himself as best he could, bringing up his hands into what seemed to be pathetically small fists. The creature prowled around him, one set of eyes focused on him, another set emerging like camouflage markings out of its side and back to watch the other two. All the while, he followed it, keeping him between it and its goal, and all the while it sized him up, seeming neither dismissive of his threat or frustrated by his obstruction, but rather interested – even amused.

Then, without warning, it attacked, a rush that gave new energy to Peter's legs, sending him springing onto its shoulder, with the belated awareness that he could easily have cleared it twice over. Instead, though, his hands landed on its slick back, oily flesh slipping and sliding under grasp. But first one hand, then the other as he swung around like a rag doll, stuck to it with the same spider-like gravity-defying persistence of earlier, and as he reflexively dug his fingers in, they sharpened, nails extending into talons that latched onto flesh and drew a furious scream of surprise and pain.

The creature twisted and turned, bucking and writhing, shifting and convulsing like a non-Newtonian fluid in a blender, one moment as solid as concrete and coarse as sand, the next as liquid as water and smooth as silk. Its body twisted, dissolved, and reformed, taking on new forms with every blink of the eye, its head twisting around on a far-too-long neck to sway and snap at Peter like a serpent, with other, smaller, heads growing up and around, like those of a hydra. And all the while, it shrieked and screeched like tearing metal in an echo chamber.

But Peter hung on, terror subsumed by grim determination as he ducked and swayed on instinct to dodge attacks, one moment arching his back out and away, the next flattening himself to his enemy's malleable skin. He was going to buy them as much time as they needed.

Unfortunately, his enemy had other ideas.

Two thick dark, claw tipped tendrils suddenly shot up like lassos, whipping around him, and locking tight, digging into flesh and bone with crushing force. Then, slowly and inexorably, they began to drag him down into a suddenly gaping black hole in its body, a terribly circular set of rotating grinders like the maw of a giant lamprey.

It would later be considered testament to his courage that he didn't scream, fighting every inch of the way. Peter would later claim that he had been too scared to breathe, let alone scream. Those who knew him best guessed – probably accurately – that the truth was somewhere in between.

He fought. He twisted. He clawed. He even bit. But to no effect. The disparity in strength, Peter's remaining breath being squeezed out of him, and his lack of leverage, made it inevitable, the maw quickly closing over his arched back, leaving smooth, oil-dark skin.

The creature, now humanoid once more, began to steadily shrink down, compressing itself to the point where it was hard to imagine any room for Peter – or, for that matter, whatever might be left of him. It looked different now, more human in proportion, and all the more disturbing for it.

Then, it directed a fang-filled grin at a grim Gambit and a horrified and sickened Monica, as a long, sinuous tongue lashed out, tasting the air. For a long, frozen moment, there was silence. Then, that mouth widened further, and a hiss wended its way out between the fangs, full of spittle and satisfaction.

"At last. We are… complete."

OoOoO

As fights went, Carol had to admit that this was not one of her harder ones. After all, she was basically going up against the equivalent of guard dogs wearing a weapon of the literal fucking gods. A weapon of the literal fucking gods which had been powered by someone who had clearly been hiding just how powerful they really were. That was something that bore thinking about.

She liked Gambit, and she could sympathise with his desire not to budge from his home and fly below the radar wherever possible. After all, the last time he'd been forced out and into the wider world, he'd got caught up in the power politics of the Red Room and become a pawn in the incredibly vicious secret war between Sinister and Doctor Strange. It had also led to the probably very unwelcome revelation that he was a clone of sorts, a lab experiment that had been fortunate enough to escape the lab.

She even understood his secret-keeping. Keeping secrets, after all, would have become second-nature, no, a survival instinct in that kind of atmosphere. Besides, she thought ruefully, it wasn't like she didn't have plenty of her own to keep, and for many of the same reasons. Going to ground in familiar territory? Perfectly rational response to getting free of controlling psychos, and being very much on the radar of Doctor Strange, who for all his good intentions was the scariest controlling psycho of them all.

But Gambit played the spy game. She didn't hold that against him – gods knew that he had reason. It was probably the only reason he was still alive. She knew plenty of other people who did the same (some of them were her relatives). Heck, even her boyfriend was on that list, when he felt like it. But with what Gambit was capable of, the kind of people he had levers on… it made her disposed to be a little wary of him. Just a little.

Wary enough to wonder what cards he was hiding up his sleeve, understanding enough to get why he was hiding them, and fond enough to like him anyway. Gambit tended to inspire that kind of reaction.

Most people would have wondered if this was really the time for such musings. Most people were not super soldiers, who might not necessarily think better than ordinary people, but did think a great deal faster, with a knack for processing important tactical information. All of which meant that such musings were mostly a matter of split-second dot connecting in the back of Carol's mind, being filed away as she put down her opponent.

Big? Yes. Dangerous? Undoubtedly. Disgusting? Absolutely. But deadly? Beyond the whole 'it only takes one second to score a goal/get someone killed' thing, not really. Not by her admittedly deeply skewed metric, even if she hadn't been blessed with apparently impenetrable gear and rough estimate that she was slugging and blasting in the same range as an early Iron Man armour. It was big, dumb, and disgusting, and it remained that way when Carol vaulted over three clawed tentacles, sprang twenty feet in the air and performed a neat somersault that would have had Olympic judges in tears, before putting the equivalent of a unibeam through the base of its skull.

Supporting this assessment was the fact that Deadpool was apparently doing just fine. Or at least, it sounded like he was.

"Wow, I mean, wow. I mean, seriously, did you raid my browser history? You're like if hentai was drawn by furries from Florida, it's the crossover I never knew I wanted. I will absolutely be sure to offer your relatives a job in Japan after I kill you."

Carol tried to block out his commentary after that, but despite her best efforts, the screeching bellows of her opponent and his, and many, many explosions, little bits kept creeping through. Including some that, she was certain, were going to haunt her nightmares.

"Hey, have any of you guys ever turned into a unicorn? Asking for a friend."

Carol unleashed a blast that distracted the crocodilian nightmare, making it turn and bare its fangs. This conveniently blotted out any follow-up and allowing Deadpool – who seemed to be able to balance talking and fighting as well as anyone she'd ever met – to neatly hurl half a dozen grenades down its throat.

One large explosion and one larger burning corpse later, she strode over and yanked him to his feet. "It's dead?"

"Dead as JFK," Deadpool said casually. "Hey, do you think I could bill those grenades as a business expense?"

"You know, I have absolutely no idea," Carol said. "Maybe if you ask my grandma nicely." She glanced around. "I'm guessing discretion is out the window, then."

"Probably," Deadpool said. "But not necessarily – Pegasus is a big place, with lots of thick walls and sound-proofing. You know, so no one can hear you scream."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm a more experienced background character, having plot-relevant information is part of why I exist."

"Deadpool."

"What? It's true," he said defensively.

Carol glared at him.

"Ugh, fine. I've got an idea of how large it is, I've heard a few stories, and I've been inside a few super soldier bases. Either you put them where no one can hear the screams, or where no one will care."

Carol considered this, then nodded slowly. "You are much smarter than you pretend to be," she admitted grudgingly.

"When it comes to murder and mayhem, there isn't much that I don't know. Seriously, it's on my website. There's testimonials and everything."

"From who, the Mafia?"

"Mafia, Russian Mafia, Yakuza, Ikea –"

"Ikea?"

"Intellectual property dispute. It got out of hand, and I got a lifetime supply of free meatballs."

Carol stared at him for a moment, then shook her head, before she swept her surroundings for any sign of the third creature. There weren't any particular noises that suggested a fight was going on, which suggested one of things. First, that it had slunk off – she felt that this was possible, but not likely. More likely was, second, that it had already been defeated, given that it was smaller, and Peter was agile enough and sensible enough to steer clear if it had attacked him. If he bought time for Gambit and Monica to get in, then Gambit could help, and he would have absolutely no trouble taking one of these things down.

Unfortunately, she was wrong about that.

OoOoO

Everything was darkness.

That was all Peter could think about as he floated, almost as if in a sensory deprivation tank. Then, vaguely, he became aware of movement – his movement. His arms and legs were moving by themselves, and fast, without any apparent recourse to his brain.

He vaguely wondered why that was; his nightmares rarely felt like this. Or rather, they felt like this, but they usually came with unpleasant sights, smells, sounds, and even tastes. This time was different. He'd been a puppet before, yes (which was mostly the reason for the nightmares), but there, he'd been a passenger in his own body (mostly. Sometimes he hadn't been and that was worse).

This didn't feel like being a passenger. This almost felt like being asleep.

But that was weird, a part of him thought. Didn't he have something to do?

It could wait, he thought.

Yes, that insistent part of him, which became more insistent with every passing moment, said. Except why should it? Why was he sleeping now? Hadn't been fighting someone?

Yes, which was he needed to sleep, he thought blearily. That was right. That felt good. After all, it had been a long flight earlier, and a longer night already, and it was dark, and it felt like a warm bath mixed with a blanket. It would be so easy just to drift off…

His eyes drooped, sight dimming further into the familiar blackness of eyelids in the night, carrying him down into darkness.

Then, they snapped open again, unbridled panic and a massive jolt of adrenalin doing the work of a bucket of ice-water and a litre of espresso, brushing aside the lulling whisper of sleep, sleep, and bringing the memories of moments ago into sharp relief. He'd been fighting that monster, that creepy disgusting thing, and it had opened up its body and swallowed him! And now, unless he was very much mistaken, he realised with the clarity of terror, it was using him as a puppet, it was going after his friends, and eating his mind at the same time.

"No, no, no!" he screamed, internally and aloud. He had escaped that fate once; he wasn't going to give in this time.

He began to resist the puppeteer's pull, thinking as hard as he could at his limbs, willing them not to move. At first, nothing seemed to happen, then, slowly, oh so very slowly, the resistance to his resistance crumbled and he got a profoundly alien sense of shock. Good, he thought viciously. It should be shocked, because he was going to get out of this thing.

The thing reached out to him, surprised, touching his mind in a way that Peter recognised from his experiences with vampires. This time, it tried to reassure him, to say that it was okay, that they were better together, that it was easier –

Peter ignored it and screamed defiance, forcing his arms inwards towards his chest, where they were least able to harm others and most able to help him. It felt like he was pulling the weight of the world on each arm, but he persisted, knowing that if he stopped, he might not be able to start again.

The thing was now wailing in his head, begging, insisting that it didn't want to fight him, it didn't want to be alone, predatory hunger mixed with desperate need. But Peter had been through enough head games not to trust it and enough in general not to care. This was his body, his mind, and it was up to him to decide what to do with it. He'd survived the King of the Vampires; he wasn't going to roll over to some! Stupid! Blob monster!

He flexed his arms one last time, then dug them into the thing's chest, as deep as they would go. There was a sting of pain, followed by a surge of triumph as claws scraped against his skin. "Okay Peter," he said to himself. "It's easy. Just pull. Pull. Pull!"

He would later compare it to pulling off a band-aid. You know, if a band-aid was alive, attached with superglue and tongues of what felt like shark-skin, flowed and stuck like oil, and was prone to reattaching itself if given even a nanosecond to do so. Oh, and it was screaming in his ear. It did that a lot.

It was agonising, but he kept at it, because he was winning. Slowly but surely, he was winning, tearing his way out of its chest. But as he toppled forward, it surged forward from his back, trying to wrap around his legs, his arms, his face, forcing him to twist and leap and spin, all in aid of trying to escape something that was literally on his back. He heard someone yelling at him to stop, to stay still, dammit!, but he ignored them.

Then, he heard something whistle through the air and land on his back, pinning him to the ground with earth-shaking force. It was metal, a small part of him registered, as he immediately started thrashing, to try and get free, to prevent the thing from getting a grip on him again, as iron hard thighs snapped around his waist. Only later would it occur to Peter the position he'd been in with one of the most attractive girls he knew. Given the givens, that wasn't exactly his priority at that point, or a thought he really wanted to dwell upon.

"Stay fucking still, Peter!" came a snapped order in a tone that made everything below Peter's nose stiffen, instinctively snapping to attention. It was immediately followed by a flare like a blowtorch, visible even from the angle he was pinned at, another one of those unholy shrieks, and some cursing. A steady feeling of heat, like sitting just a little too close to a hearth-fire, was building around his lower back. "I can keep it from spreading, but I'm running out of charge and the fucking thing won't fucking come off – Deadpool so help me if you suggest grenades again, I will make you eat them –"

"Carol," another voice, the ninja-thief-exploding guy, Gambit, interrupted. "Move. Me'n Monica have an idea."

"Oh hell no, I'm not letting either of you –"

"Y'ain't got a choice, unless you want me to super-charge you or it, and hope that de kid survives de blast," Gambit snapped.

"Get it off," Peter found himself whispering. "Get it off, get it off, get it off!"

A hand, smooth as silk, warm as a bench on a sunny day, and stronger than steel brushed against his hand and gripped it tight.

"I promise," Carol said fiercely, before a fierce whispered discussion went on above his head. Peter could hear more than he was probably supposed to, though less than he might, given he was still squirming with fright and wary of any attack on his mind. Since variations on "explode" and "are you insane?!" were heavily involved in what he did hear, it didn't overly reassure him.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, but was probably less than thirty seconds, Carol's voice returned, as did her grip on his hand. "Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"When I say move, you roll away, and get as far away as you can. Okay?"

"But you're –"

"Peter. Do you trust me?"

Peter swallowed. "Yes."

Her grip tightened.

"Good. When I say move – move. Okay?"

"Yes."

"Good," she repeated. "Okay…" She shifted her weight, so it was still present, but lesser, the pressure taken off his back. "… MOVE!"

In an instant, a flash of bright blue light illuminated the clearing, Carol's weight vanished, and so did the feeling of the parasite on his back. If Peter could have vanished, he would have too, but instead, instinct propelled him into a sideways lurching leap and a roll, followed by a quick scramble over his body for any remnants of the thing that had swallowed him, as he looked up for any sign of the rest of it.

As it happened, the large dark mass of the creature had been blasted off of him somehow, and the other four were scattering: Carol, her shield-armour stuff glowing, had grabbed Monica and spun away, shielding her with her body. Deadpool, standing at a distance, had what looked like a stubby grenade launcher out, and pointed at the last person. Gambit. Gambit who was just standing there as the tidal wave of hungry darkness swept down upon him, swallowing him up. A horrified scream began in Peter's throat, then choked off as that strange sense of warning told him to drop.

He dropped. An instant later, the entire bayou was shaken by a bomb-like explosion of purple energy. When he looked up, the others were getting to their feet, save only for Gambit who looked more or less unscathed. Of the parasite creature there was no sign, other than a few black gobbets being steadily consumed by flickering purple flames.

Slowly, carefully, he got up and staggered over, intent on asking Gambit just how he'd done that and also if he was really absolutely definitely sure it was dead.

He didn't get the chance, however, as for the second time in as many minutes, he was pinned in a vice-like metallic grip. Which included his head banging into a metal helmed chin.

"Ow?" he said uncertainly, confused as much as anything else by what appeared to be a fearsomely tight hug. He didn't know many huggy people, but he was pretty sure that this was the last person he'd expect to be one of them.

"Sorry," Carol – and yes, to his astonishment, it was Carol, Carol 'stay at safe distance if you want to live because I can behead vampires' Danvers – said, sounding somewhat abashed. "It's just… Jesus, Peter, I thought we'd lost you."

As she spoke, most of the upper-body armour seemed to fade into cloth, retreating into a breast plate, leaving behind soft clothing and skin. Normally, Peter would have flushed and extricated himself, mortally embarrassed and afraid of misunderstandings. As it was, though, he leaned into warmth, strength, and reassurance.

"This is nice," he mumbled into her shoulder, before flushing.

A susurration of relieved laughter bubbled up through her chest, and she hugged him again, before releasing him, cheeks a little pink.

"Are you –" she began, before shaking her head. "I'm taking you back, at least to the boat. You too, Monica."

"Excuse me, who just got that thing off Parker's back?" Monica asked, before patting his shoulder. "Good to have you back with us, by the way." Peter managed to muster up a smile and a mumbled 'thank you'.

"You sneaked up on it when I had its host pinned down and I was frying it in the face," Carol said flatly, and took a deep breath. It occurred to Peter that she looked older, all of a sudden – not just older than she was, the way she did normally, but way older, face aged by stress and eyes by having seen far too much. "You could have died, Monica. And something much, much worse could have happened to Peter. I shouldn't –"

"Shoulda, woulda, coulda," Deadpool said impatiently. "It didn't. Spider-Boy here isn't hentai's next big thing, and Plot-Twist Girl isn't his crunchy human snack. I'm not usually the voice of reason, but we don't have time to waste if we want to stop Nimue becoming the Wicked Witch of the Western Hemisphere. Save the angst for the weepy post-battle analysis."

Carol rounded on him, expression furious, but Gambit touched her shoulder.

"Carol," he said quietly. "'e's right. We don' have time f'r this, an' we might need both of them later on: ah can't pick every lock in Pegasus, an' 'e spotted danger long before any of us did."

Carol met his gaze for a long moment, then cursed viciously in what sounded like Russian. "Fine," she growled. "Peter, you're with Deadpool. You're spotting and surveillance. Monica, you're with Gambit. You're… you know what you guys are doing. Both of you, do what they say, when they say it, unless I say otherwise. As far as you can, stay out of trouble, and away from anything with powers and teeth. Monica, you're squishy and have no healing powers. Peter, you can probably survive most normal monsters, but this sure as shit isn't normal. Any questions?"

Peter raised a hand, and Carol softened a little. "Yes?" she asked, strained but kind.

"Um… how did Gambit destroy that thing?" he asked.

"Most things are softer on de inside," Gambit said laconically. "So, I made like Jonah."

"Oh."

Carol nodded, then eyed Peter. "Are you sure you're up for this?" she asked quietly. "If you're not, there's no shame in that. I've been run like a puppet a time or two, and it leaves a mark."

Peter hesitated, tempted by the offered way out for a moment. Then, he shook his head. "I can help," he said. "That means I've got a responsibility to do so."

She smiled wryly. "Can't argue with that," she said. "Not without being a hypocrite, anyway."

Then, she and the others looked up at the open gate of Project Pegasus.

She took a deep breath. "Okay Gambit," she said, voice turning metallic as her armour swept over her once more. "Charge me up."

OoOoO

At the heart of Pegasus, in a place that was far away by some measures, and not so very far at all by others, Nimue looked up and tilted her head, listening with a frown. She raised her right hand and focused the Ring on a puddle, which misted over and cleared, showing the gates of Pegasus now opened, her guard-dogs destroyed. It did not take much imagination to realise that the motley group that she had thought flat on their backs in her cottage were nothing of the sort.

She swirled her hand, murmuring an enchantment, gold flickering in her eyes. The image shifted, then shifted again, flickering and slipping around, as if it was trying to hold smoke. Eventually, the spell faded, leaving her no more enlightened.

Many might have been frustrated at being deflected. Some might even have been frightened by the implicit power at work. Nimue, on the other hand, allowed a moment of irritation to pass across her face, before fading into a wry smile.

"You do choose well, don't you?" she said mildly to the Ring, which glowed sullenly at her, before looking up and focusing once more. "Let's see just how well."

She spoke a word.

And Pegasus awoke.

OoOoO

"Got to say, I was expecting more opposition," Carol murmured. After getting past the guards, Pegasus had been creepy, dilapidated, and full of strange rustling, humming, and chittering noises, all calculated to leave one on edge. However, it had also been apparently empty.

"Don't speak too soon."

Carol barely repressed a shriek, and Gambit bit off an imprecation. Monica and Peter were less practised. Deadpool was every bit as practised and more, but didn't feel like bothering.

"Sweet motherfucking Jesus, it's the talking magic eight ball again."

Carol glared at him, before transferring her glare to the imprint of Strange, which was apparently unimpeded by his vessel being in one of her pockets, under her suit. She was more annoyed at the latter. For one thing, Deadpool was clearly crazy, and while Strange was too, he was usually the professional kind of crazy. For another, she had to admit that the comparison was kind of apt.

"Nimue has aroused Pegasus," he said.

"That's why she's here? Man, I admire her dedication," Deadpool said. "And it explains why she was kind of cranky."

"What?" Peter asked, confused.

"Hey, I once had a two-year dry spell, and I was pissed, the whole time," the mercenary continued. "She's been waiting twenty years, huh? I guess size really does matter."

Strange let out an exasperated sigh. "Aroused as in awakened, and Pegasus as in the base, not the winged horse, you foul-minded dimwit," he tiredly.

There was a moment of silence.

"Did he just –" Monica began.

"Yup," Gambit said flatly.

"I mean, did he actually –"

"Yup," Carol said, just as flatly.

Peter, meanwhile, just stared at Deadpool in horror, who wagged an admonitory finger at them.

"Hey, don't go kink-shaming. The bond between horse and rider is sacred."

There was another moment of silence.

"I'm gonna be sick," Monica said matter-of-factly.

"Go ahead. Aim for his face."

Thankfully, they were immediately distracted. Though given the distraction, they weren't too thankful for that, either.

"As I was saying," Strange said. "Nimue has awakened Pegasus."

"Which is… bad?" Peter ventured.

"It took Alan Scott to contain last time," Strange replied dryly. "And was perhaps the biggest near miss the world saw between then and the Battle of New York. Both, incidentally, involved the Tesseract. They thought that studying the Tesseract in a purely scientific context would make it safer. Needless to say, it didn't." He glanced around. "In this iteration, the Tesseract was just one of many things studied, and arguably not the most dangerous." He smiled thinly. "I invite you to speculate as to the results."

"I've heard enough horror stories about thieves dat tried t' break into this place," Gambit said grimly. "Unless it's needed, I don' need more."

"It will be," Strange sighed. "Oh, it will be. This place spawned horrors that surpassed even the original Red Son project. Since the second subject was used to carve out the Twelve Day Empire, that's no small thing."

"Wait, there was another Red Son?" Carol said sharply.

"There was," Strange said darkly. "If you want to know what it was, I suggest you ask your grandmother, Wanda, or, perhaps, Natasha. And I would advise making sure you haven't recently eaten something before you do." He cast his intangible gaze around. "They were trying to do much the same thing that Pegasus was doing – or at least, one of the things that Pegasus was trying."

"Create a super soldier," Carol said.

"Indeed," Strange said. "The difference was that the Red Room succeeded. But they still made many of the same mistakes that Project Pegasus did – though one, rather distinct one, all of their own."

"What was that?" Carol asked warily.

"'Do not call up that which you cannot put down.'"

Carol shuddered. "Thanks," she said. "I needed new nightmares."

"You won't be short of them after passing through Pegasus, I assure you," Strange said grimly.

"Why did you even let this happen?" she asked, after a moment of silence.

Strange, who now seemed to be examining something none of them could see, poking intangible fingers through walls, which sometimes lit up with a pale glow around his ghostly hands, didn't immediately reply. Just before she could prompt him, though, he spoke. "For the same two reasons that I have allowed many of the things that I have let pass over the millennia," he said. "Firstly, to prevent something worse."

"And secondly?"

His gaze slid over to her.

"Because in my experience, Tolkien was right," he said. "'The burned hand teaches best'." He looked away, into the base. "It is better than the alternative."

"Which is?" Monica asked uneasily.

"In this case? Nimue, killing you," Strange said absently.

"Killing us?" Peter said, voice cracking.

"Without blinking," Strange confirmed. "Which is what she's trying to do anyway, by waking Pegasus rather ahead of her plans. Not to use it as some sort of convoluted death trap or delay, but for lack of a better alternative. Normally, she would just have scried you and fried you, something which I am preventing."

He looked up at two disturbed looking faces, two grim ones, and a Deadpool one.

"Nimue learned a long time ago not to underestimate her enemies, no matter how young they may be," he explained. "And you have proved to be far more dangerous than she expected. She spared you before, yes, but not out of mercy. She spared you because she was wary of the vengeance that your deaths would bring down upon her – another lesson she learned long ago. Now, she has weighed the balance of risk again, and this time, she will not hesitate. So, I took precautions."

"Thanks?" Peter ventured feebly.

"You're welcome," Strange said, before regarding the apparently empty space and nodding his spectral satisfaction. "I will be able to guide you, to an extent, to keep you on a quicker path and away from safeguards and places where the wild magics are strongest. Places where even Deadpool would not survive."

"I take that as a challenge."

"You can come back another time," Strange said dismissively. "However, I am… limited, at best."

"Uh, before we go in," Monica said. "You know basically everything, right?"

"I am a copy of someone who can provide a creditable impersonation of omniscience, yes," Strange said. "Which is why I know that you're going to ask about Peter and the symbiote – the gooey creature with the teeth."

"Yeah. Why no warning?" Monica demanded.

"As I have told others, including Carol, I can't warn you of everything," Strange said. "Especially not in my current form. As it is, though, Peter needed that experience, for his hand to be burned."

"Actually, I think it was the last thing I needed," Peter said, shivering.

Strange looked at him, something like sympathy on his pale face. "No," he said quietly. "It is the last thing you wanted. And therein lies the difference."

"What difference?" Peter demanded.

Strange regarded him calmly for a moment. Then, he spoke.

"'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.'"

"Sun-Tzu," Gambit said, raising an eyebrow. "Y' full of quotes tonight, aren't you?"

"Indeed," Strange said. "You needed to know your strength, Peter Parker, both physical and mental. You also needed to know your weakness – a propensity to leap without looking, on your own. I am sure that some of you will find that quite familiar. Now, you understand both, learning in an environment where you were sufficiently supported that you actually survived the experience. Here endeth the lesson. Now, if you will follow me…"

He flowed down the corridor, barely even pretending to walk.

"He's a real charmer, isn't he?" Monica said.

"Believe me, he can be worse."

OoOoO

Once upon a time, Project Pegasus had been a sleek and efficient building, its technology and design at the very peak of modernity as its employees pushed the boundaries between the mundane and the supernatural.

Eventually, those boundaries had pushed back, tearing it apart in one night of savagery.

Now, even two decades later, it lay like a corpse in the undergrowth with rot and decay flensing it to the bone, while nature claimed the resilient skeleton for its own. And in turn, it became a habitat for the creatures that lived there, unique in all the world, a triumph of conservation. Technically, that was correct.

Very, very technically.

The small group trod softly and swiftly as they dared through the ruined complex.

Sometimes, they slid down semi-collapsed floors to descend to a passable level, or leapt, scrambled, and clambered their way up through broken staircases, wincing at each heavy landing.

Sometimes, they ducked and weaved swiftly through corridors full of pulsating mosses and vines, which reached out off of walls, floors, and ceilings, slowly questing towards them with patient predatory hunger.

Sometimes, they froze, as a threat came near.

The first was all but silent, with only eerie high-pitched hunting cries barely perceptible to enhanced hearing for a warning as they closed in. Eventually, their source emerged: bipedal creatures with thin, elongated and sinewy limbs, pale mottled skin, vast bat-like ears, elongated dog-like noses, and a swift loping stride. Hunting in pairs, they searched the room in a fashion that was almost human in its systematic nature. Then, one pricked its ear, intelligent eyes zeroing in on their hiding spot, picking out one breath that had been slightly too loud.

That one had died first, one of Deadpool's swords lodged in its gullet as it threw back its head to summon its greater pack. The second had died an instant later, Carol's armoured fist crumpling its brittle rib cage like dried grass stems as it went through its chest and out the other side. For a moment, horrified blue eyes met frightened, intelligent brown. For a fraction of that moment, fear faded to something else: gratitude. Then, it shuddered and died.

Carol stood there for several long moments, like a statue drenched in blood, then she exhaled slowly, and lowered her arm. The corpse, uninhibited by the smooth armour, slid off and hit the floor with a meaty thump. The questing cries rang out again in the distance, puzzled now, but they soon faded.

"Carol?" Gambit said quietly. "Y' okay?"

"Its eyes," she said softly.

Gambit blinked, then dropped down, inspecting the creature. He swore softly.

"What is it?" Monica asked.

"Human," Deadpool said, cleaning his sword. He sounded unusually serious. "Or, you know, it used to be." Seeing Monica's horrified look, he shrugged. "I'm not some big brain, and all I've heard about this place are stories. But I know what kind of set up it was: I recognise the style. I've been in the back-alley sweat shop version, and I was the only one who got out alive and with my mind."

He paused.

"Well, most of it," he amended. "Point is, there's all kinds of things in the world that can change you. If you get lucky, you just die. If you get really lucky? You're not affected at all. And if you get unlucky? You turn into something like that." He swung his sword around at each of them in turn. "All of us? We didn't just get lucky, we got as lucky as lucky could get." He gestured with the blade at the two downed creatures. "Those guys? They didn't. They got the shitty end of a stick that is 99% shit. Everything and everyone in here did, and all SHIELD could do was lock them away to rot." He shook his head sharply. "God, I remember why I hate places like this so much."

He sheathed his sword with unnecessary force, and made for the door.

"Deadpool," Gambit said, voice low but pitched to carry. "Y' gonna scout de route?"

Deadpool didn't answer.

"Keep an' eye out, okay?"

"Sure," the mercenary shortly. "I'll keep both out. I'll be made of eyes. Knowing this place, some fucker probably really is made of eyes…"

He stalked out, bitterness trailing behind him.

"I didn't think he took anything seriously," Monica murmured.

"Laughter often hides pain," Strange said. His ghostly presence whispering directions was enough of a constant by now that it wasn't a real surprise when he spoke up. "And in his case, it has more to hide than most. In many ways, Deadpool was born in a place like this."

"A super-soldier project," Peter said, subdued and trying not to look at the dead bodies. Alive, they had been frightening and dangerous. Now, they seemed almost pitiful.

"Yes," Strange said. "Far smaller, much more modest in its ambitions and its methods, and more successful for it. But ultimately, it was little different. Pegasus had other aims too, of course, many benign. Its test subjects were also volunteers with what they believed to be full knowledge of what they were doing, while Deadpool's own experience was a common one to his project – desperate, isolated… dying. Vulnerable to the first person offering a miracle. Just as Pegasus did."

He shook his head.

"Pegasus offered to harness some of the greatest miracles in the universe, both times," he said. "Both times, it offered power, unlimited power – a warm light for all mankind to share. But both times, its true purpose was different. Project Pegasus was, and always has been, a weapons project above all."

As they followed a returned and still taciturn Deadpool, who led them deeper into Pegasus and up in a spiral towards the upper levels. As they passed laboratories, impromptu clearings, and experimentation areas, the mysteries of Pegasus were revealed in all their warped majesty.

In one huge, concrete room, a huge, cracked ring of grey stone on a rusty steel podium, held in place by heat-warped titanium, inscribed with symbols like constellations and with shattered bulbs at regular intervals. Within it, a silver-white pool rippled like a noon-lit sea, and from it poured flickering blue, white, and green will-o-the-wisps, all the colours of corpses as they swirled hypnotically through the room and beyond like a meandering river of light.

Red lines like wires snaked out of cracks and across every surface with a tracery too infinitely delicate to be artificial, some banded with sickly white sticky ovals, each band with a swirling mad dark dot that darted back and forth. They stepped past each in turn, doing their best to ignore how those mad dots followed them, and when they passed the room to which it led, a collapsed laboratory full of red-tinted shadows, no one looked in for more than a moment.

Near the top of the building, there was what seemed like a river the width of an Olympic swimming pool barring their way. It was deeper and darker than even Peter's further enhanced night vision could see, and despite being at least seventy feet off the ground with no obvious in or outflow, it flowed all the same and wasn't draining, both in complete defiance of physics. Doctor Strange's warning to stay far above the waters was unnecessary, as silent and unanimous agreement had been made to do just that.

In the end, Peter scaled the walls, scuttling across and back, carrying Monica on his back the second time. Carol, given a charging boost by Gambit, simply took him and Deadpool under her arms and took a flying leap across. If any of them saw the dark shapes with bulbous pale eyes stir restlessly under the rushing surface, then none gave any sign of it. None, save Deadpool, who with good humour restored (something considered to be a mixed blessing at best), quipped that maybe they should stop for some special sushi ingredients on the way back.

He was quickly hushed, though not simply for lack of taste – Peter had frozen, eyes darting around, searching for an unseen threat. Carol had been the only one to look up and mouth a vicious swear-word as she clamped Deadpool's mouth shut. In the metal rafters above were perched what initially looked like androids of some sort, blued steel with solid yellow eyes and brighter steel on their backs. Then, as her eyes adjusted, she saw more: a focus that only a living mind could bring to bear, and those backs weren't exactly backs – they were wings. Flexing, living, metallic wings. Wings, in short, of a kind that she had seen before.

Worse, she realised, it wasn't alone – there were at least four others, each sweeping the facility with an eagle-eyed gaze. It was a miracle they hadn't been spotted. It would be a further miracle if they wouldn't be spotted the next time they moved beyond breathing. Carol calculated the odds and found that she didn't have much faith in further miracles. She swore under her breath, then swore again as she realised her choice. She glanced at the ghostly figure of Strange, who nodded very slightly.

She exhaled and returned the nod. Well, it wasn't like she hadn't done this before in an eldritch location, on the very first night she'd wielded a shield. And this time, she had no intention of dying, and she was pretty sure she wouldn't. Which, frankly, was better than she usually got.

"Gambit," she breathed. "Charge me. As much as you can spare. Then lead them on."

Gambit, who had come to the same conclusions she had, grimaced, but did so without comment or complaint as Carol watched the feral Archangels and calculated the distance to the nearest edge, that would take her back down into the depths of Pegasus, to as deep as they had been and deeper still. The good thing about working with a master thief, she mused, when Gambit tapped her shoulder to let her know he was done, was that they understood the importance of distractions. The good thing about working with a master spy, she inwardly added, as she tapped his hand to acknowledge, was that they understood the necessity of sacrifices.

"Luck," he whispered.

She took a deep breath, carefully relaxing her body, focusing on the edge and feeling the raw power thrumming through her shield-armour, which she let encase her entirely. There was no time to crawl there and hope not to be noticed, or call to take that risk. It would have to be all or nothing. Besides, she thought with a smirk. Crawling wasn't her style.

"Luck? I'll make my own," she replied softly, then before anyone could respond, she exploded to the edge and over it. The moment at the height of her leap, before gravity took hold, she shoved her hands down below her, unleashing a blast as an impromptu repulsor, sending her lurching into the heights with jerky grace.

The flash and thunder of her ascent blinded and deafened half the creatures that crept through Pegasus' shadows, drawing a reply in screams and yelps and shrieks. The loudest of all from the Archangels, which, like everything else, focused on her now glowing armour with singleminded intensity as they dived towards on an attack run.

Distraction, complete.

Well, that seems an appropriate cut-off point. Again, I wish I'd managed to round it off in one, but in retrospect, Pegasus is of sufficient scale that one chapter probably wouldn't be enough to do it justice/plumb the depths of The Horror That Was Pegasus. Also, yes, there were two Pegasus Projects, as I alluded to - the later one was much more limited and related to Tesseract and Destroyer tech/research. We saw it in the early part of The Avengers, when Loki came through. As it is, I'm now going on holiday to France, my first proper holiday in a very long time, and hopefully that should help me recharge my batteries/actually focus. As those who know me personally can attest, there's been no shortage of ideas, or writing in other works, including the next chapter of Ghosts.