This story comes hot on the heels of a series I was publishing for two years. If you're here from that series, welcome! This is going to be totally different. Well, not totally. It's not a hospital AU, for one. But I'm still stuck writing these characters as much younger than they actually are. Except Peter, he's pretty true to canon here. Anyways, enjoy!

Prologue:

"All I'm seeing is one man in an abandoned warehouse. It wouldn't take a team to take you down," Mr. Stark said.

"You may be right. But we're not here to find that out." He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a controller strapped to his wrist. A few button presses later the factory flooded with robots. They looked almost like Iron Man suits, with glowing blue eyes and sleek metal bodies, but the similarities ended here. No Iron Man suit had ever opened fire on Peter, for one. The room erupted into chaos. Drones swarmed overhead, their bright blue blasts mixing with Mr. Stark's bursts of yellow and Peter's webs. Steve's shield ricocheted off drones like a pinball, but the robots kept coming even with gashes several inches deep.

Peter tried to stay away from the heat of the fray, knowing his skillset was more valuable from a distance, but every web he shot towards the ceiling brought down rubble and he didn't trust that it would hold his weight if he tried to swing. He lassoed robot after robot, swinging them into walls or each other. Mr. Stark was a bolt of red and gold shooting through the sea of silver, taking down drones with repulsor blasts and brute force. "Have you located the satellite?" he asked over the comms. For a moment, Peter wondered if their comms would even work with Wanda and Pietro back in the States, but then he remembered that Mr. Stark had designed the devices. Of course they'd work internationally.

"We found it," Pietro said grimly. "Looks like he rigged it to launch from the basement of the school. But there's no opening for it to launch through, so… Anyway, countdown reads ten minutes."

"Can you stop it?"

"I don't know," Wanda said. "Give me a few minutes to look it over."

"You have ten minutes," Steve warned.

"I know that! I can see the timer."

"What's going on over there?" Pietro asked.

"Robots," Peter panted. "Lots and lots of robots."

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a small group had split off. Instead of targeting them, they began attacking the walls. "They're trying to bring the building down!" he cried right as the entire structure around them groaned and began to buckle. Mr. Stark dove down and grabbed onto Steve. They flew for one of the windows. Peter swung desperately for the nearest exit, no longer concerned with damaging the building. With every swing, he ripped out a chunk of ceiling. Just before he reached a window, the ceiling completely gave way. Peter lost all momentum and scrambled to attach a web to something before he crashed to the ground. At the last second, he gained purchase on the window frame. His shoulders screamed in protest as his fall came to an abrupt halt. Peter tucked and rolled through the window, broken glass raining down around him. When he came to a stop and turned around, all that remained of the factory was a pile of dust and rubble.

Less than a foot above his head, Steve's shield made contact with a robot. Peter flinched and covered his head. "Sorry." Steve reached out a hand to help him to his feet. "Should've yelled head's up."

"It's okay."

There was no time to continue the conversation as a second wave of drones arrived. Peter couldn't pinpoint where they were coming from because they seemed to arrive from all directions at once. He swung his way to the top of a nearby building and webbed up every drone to pass his way, smashing them into the ground or the side of another building. Below, Steve tore through robots, his shield like a machete in the hand of an avid bushwhacker. He left a trail of severed arms and heads in his wake. Mr. Stark bobbed and weaved through the throng of metal, ripping some drones to pieces with his hands and blasting others.

"How's it looking?" Mr. Stark asked.

"I don't know what any of these wires do," Pietro confessed. "You said he was smarter than even you, so he's definitely smarter than us and he's the one who built this thing."

Mr. Stark gave steady but tense instructions over the comms. "Try disabling the primary thrusters."

"I don't know what that means!" Pietro shouted.

"Dammit! If I was over there, I could see the system and kill it dead in a minute," he grumbled. "Find the part that looks like the fire will come out of it, and see if you can get it open."

"Okay."

Peter paused on top of a building. On the ground, Steve pummeled robot after robot. Mr. Stark circled overhead and shot the more distant ones with his repulsors. Three drones approached Peter at once. He shot a web at the center one and swung from it. The sudden addition of his weight threw the drone off course and it crashed into the side of the building, crumpling its head. Just before impact, Peter released his grip. His stomach surged into his throat as he went weightless for a moment before landing on the back of the second drone. Peter used his weight to steer it into the third one. They crashed with a cacophony of crumpling metal and the remains fell uselessly to the ground.

"We opened some access panels but don't know what to do with any of the stuff inside," Pietro explained. "Is there a chance we could set it off if we cut the wrong wire or something?"

"Absolutely. That's not just a stupid movie cliche."

"Nice to know Hollywood's getting that right. Now can you help me get it right?!"

A robot T-boned Mr. Stark, sending him careening towards the ground. He managed to pull up at the last second and avoid a full-on collision. "Pietro, just run back and bring me to the school, can you do that?"

It took a long time for Pietro to respond. Long enough for Peter to destroy four more robots.

"No I cannot do that," he said frantically.

"Ten seconds!" Wanda exclaimed.

God, where did all the time go? Peter narrowly avoided smacking into an oncoming drone. He swung around it at the last second and turned around to launch a web and whip it into the nearest building. The drone crashed through the window and rolled across the floor, but quickly righted itself and resumed its pursuit. Peter webbed it again and this time swung it into another approaching drone. They collided midair with an explosion of scrap metal and oil.

"That's not enough time," Steve said grimly. Moments later a drone clobbered him from behind. Peter watched helplessly as his head snapped forward and he tumbled to the ground.

"Five seconds!" Wanda sounded inconsolably desperate. Steve didn't make any move to get up. Another drone swept down from the sky to attack Peter. He grabbed it by the neck, flipped onto its back, and ripped its head off. As they plummeted through the sky, Peter swung his way towards Steve. He hit the ground harder than he intended and stumbled a few steps before sprinting the rest of the way. Peter fought desperately to reach his teammate, but the swarm of drones around him was too dense, and he kept getting shoved backwards. He webbed up as many as he could, but for each one that fell, two more took his place. Even Mr. Stark's continuous aerial attack couldn't thin their numbers enough to give Peter the edge.

Three came at him at once, and Peter fell to the ground. He braced himself to be ripped limb from limb.

Over the comms, Wanda screamed. The satellite launched. They were too late.