DISC: I don't own Spider-Man or Marvel. Warning for minor swearing.
...
Chapter Twenty
The first thing Pete is aware of is the taste of ash in his mouth.
He blinks his eyes open slowly, bewildered when a sky full of orange and red greets him; the warmth of an alien planet that's vaguely familiar. Then the wizard is there, standing in his vision, clasping his arm to help him up. He peers around, taking in the destruction and ruin that has laid waste to the planet he is standing on.
"Where? What…?"
Doctor Strange snaps his fingers, bringing his attention back to him, "Come on, they need us. We've got to go."
Pete stumbles forward, his body strangely achey as if it hadn't been put back together right.
"I don't…I don't understand," he pats down his body, feeling the firm lines of his suit, all in one piece, "I got…all dusty and Mr Stark…"
"Kid," Doctor Strange clasps a hand on his shoulder, "It's been five years. Now, you need to get your head in the game, there's a battle still to be won."
He releases him and before he can say another word, starts spinning his hand in a circular motion. A circle of light opens up in front of them, looking down into what Pete can only describe as rubble.
Terror claws at his throat, as the others - the Guardians, they called themselves, Pete remembers - start to move forward. He inhales, gathering all of his thoughts and fears into a neat box and places at the back of his mind. He activates his mask, takes one step and then another until he is in the air, his webs thwipping, and he is leaping through the wizard's portal and onto the battlefield, taking his place beside the other Avengers.
The air smells like decay, and before him stands an army. His hands tremble, but he buries the fear quickly - his thoughts turning to Ned, MJ, May, Mo. He would fight for them.
And he would win. Whatever it takes.
….
The first thing Mo is aware of is the smell of petrol and rain. She can tell it is dark, even though her eyelids feel too heavy to lift. There's noise everywhere, all around her, filling her ears; somewhere nearby someone is screaming. The thought is quickly lost as pain flares throughout her body.
Her ribs feel like they're on fire and the back of her head aches like a motherfucker. She gasps, her lungs lighting like a Christmas tree, her muscles spasming. She can feel something wet under her head.
She tries to shift, but there's something wrong with her leg. She opens her eyes then, roving her gaze over her nearby surroundings and the dark grey clouds above her. That's strange, she thinks, remembering the clear blue sky that greeted her as she left her apartment that morning. Her palms are stinging, and she can smell the copper stench of blood. She's lying on wet tarmac, which is weird because hadn't she been in the restaurant? With her da?
Every lungful of air rattles and she coughs loudly. The screaming near her head continues and she tries to clear the blurriness from her vision to pinpoint the sound. She shifts, and a spasm of pain shoots through her.
She was in the restaurant and then…something happened. She was gone and then she was there again. She was falling, falling…
Her thoughts fall away like paper in the wind. Her head is muddled as if she is hearing everything from underwater.
Not right, not right, something's not right.
Then suddenly, "Miss? Miss, can you hear me?"
A blurry woman appears in her vision, dressed in a dark uniform, her face smudged with dirt and ash. She's pressing gentle hands to the back of her head; Mo groans as she hits a sensitive spot.
The woman's eyes are wide, "Can you move, Ma'am?"
"I…" Mo slurs. "W'as happ'nin?"
Darkness is starting to seep into the edge of her vision. She closes her eyes, settling against the rough concrete that digs into her heavy bones. She'd just rest for a moment - just a moment.
….
"I got it!" Pete is swinging towards the glove before he can even think, his arms moving to web the glove towards him.
"Karen!" He cries, smooshing an alien down as he lands, "Activate instant kill!"
There's a sound as his suit powers up, just in time for the hordes of aliens to descend upon him.
"I got this, I got this," he cries, still clinging to the ugly gauntlet in his arms. But the horde continues to swarm him, "Ok, I don't got this. Help, somebody help!"
"Hey, Queens, heads up!"
He looks up in just enough time to see a hammer flying over his head. He webs it, allowing it to pull him up and over the aliens, across the battlefield until a stray beam cuts his web in half. He is falling, falling, until - Pepper catches him.
"I got you, kid," she says, before flinging him up towards a flying horse. He lands without hesitation, settling behind another woman.
"Hey! Nice to meet you - oh my god!" He cries as she abruptly ducks towards the ground and around beams, and he finds himself clinging on for dear life. They're about halfway across the battlefield when Mr Barton's voice crackles down the comms line.
"Cap, we need to steer the horde away from the Compound, there's still civilians evacuating."
"There are civilians in there?" A shocked voice follows shortly. Pete thinks it might be Black Panther, but he doesn't dwell on the thought, too busy trying to cling to the back of the flying horse as it dips and dodges beams of certain destruction.
"They must have been there pre-Snap," Mr Stark says. If Pete focuses he can just about make out his red and gold armour through the horde of evil aliens.
"Any casualties?" Captain Rogers asked.
"Nothing fatal as of yet," Mr Barton replies. "They're still clearing the lower levels though."
"Shit."
"Tony?" Captain Rogers grunts the question, his shield curving through the air over the top of the battlefield.
"It's nothing, I just-" he pauses with a painful grunt. "Is everyone accounted for?"
"I'm not sure, the medics say-" Mr Barton goes quiet. "Right, they're saying everyone's now accounted for. Medics are on the southside so any injuries are to go there directly."
It's then that Pete is thrown from the horse. He tumbles to the ground, hitting the dirt with a heavy thud. He rolls to a stop, the giant gauntlet still wrapped in his arms, as the battle rages on around him.
"-firing on his own troops-"
"-get to cover, everyone-"
"-about the civilians-"
Everything is too loud. All the voices ring at once in his ears, mingling with the wailing of nearby aliens.
"-where's the gauntlet-"
"-Pete had it last-"
"-Spider-Man is-"
He gasps, curling in on himself. It was too much, all too much. His body aches, and he can feel a thick coat of grime covering from head to toe. He exhales, trying to breathe the way his aunt taught him.
In, then out. In, out. In, out.
Suddenly the cannon fire comes to a sudden halt. Pete snaps to attention, just in enough time to see an entire ship explode above him and start to break apart.
"-we need to get the civilians out of here-"
"How are we gonna do that when Mr Big Ugly Purple is raining constant fire down on us."
"Does anyone know where Pete is?"
There's a roar and his head whips up to see a large alien has spotted him. Pete scoots back, trying to ignore the tingling along his spine. Danger, danger, danger, it cries.
He stands, facing down the large alien as it stands to charge towards him, the gauntlet tight in his arms. There is an ache in him, all the way down to his bones. He glances down at the gauntlet in his hand, and as he looks up, he sees Doctor Strange. The man stares evenly at him, before raising two trembling fingers.
Peter Parker places his hand in the gauntlet.
"What did I tell you, when Tony took your suit?"
"That Mr Stark was right. I was more than the suit."
"It's your heart that makes you a good Spider-Man. You're stubborn and determined and brave, and if the world was gonna end there is no-one I'd rather be with than you…"
The right side of his body burns with the heat of a thousand suns - and he screams, gritting his teeth against the pain as it races up the side of his body. A few nearby heads swivel towards him, one of which is Tony, whose eyes are more terrified than they had been on Titan as he fell away into a cloud of dust into his arms.
Peter Parker snaps.