Chapter Thirty: Comess to Silence
"Stark, you hear me? You have a missile headed straight for the city."
"Excuse me?! We have a what?!" Spider-man practically shouted into the comm.
Fury's voice responded in the same manner as always. "Excuse me, is your name Stark?!"
"I don't know," the teenager shot back, still sore about the secret identity incident, "you tell me."
"How long?" Iron Man interrupted the squabbling.
"Four minutes. Max. Pay load could wipe out Midtown."
"I'm a – little – stuck – at the moment." The reply was accompanied by rattled clangs and thuds, like the suit was getting punched repeatedly from the outside. Though, seeing as Spidey himself was currently being chased by at least a dozen chariots himself, that was entirely plausible. The boy zipped through the air from web to web, far faster than the usual city traffic that was now upside-down and on fire. He led them through the streets, dipping low, soaring high, causing any number of them to crash into the ground or a wall or each other. For a race that seemed to have such advanced technology, they really were stupid. Couldn't even design a proper steering system.
But they had swarmed Spider-man out of nowhere, in the middle of one of his rescues, and driven him away from the terrified – and rather confused – pedestrians. It was like being chased by a hive of angry, uncoordinated bees and the comments over his earpiece told about the same story for his current teammates. Well, Hulk didn't exactly have a comm, and neither did Thor, but the others seemed to be pinned down or facing impossible odds. Of course, he sighed, that was his daily job.
"Hold onto your helmet, Shellhead," the adolescent arachnid warned as he kicked a charioteer and another alien in what he thought was probably the groin perhaps a little too gleefully. "I'm coming, and I brought friends."
A long-suffering sigh filled his ear – he'd only known Spidey for a day! – and the hero cracked a grin. "Ugh, is this what I'm like? I've got to give Pepper a raise. And Rhodey." The billionaire paused for a second as a thought occurred to him. "First I have to hire Rhodey, then I'll give him a raise." On his end, the young brunet was pretty much ignoring him, save for a snicker, as he focused on the lessening trail behind him. Five left… now four… oop, two more gone, the driving Chitauri just found what Earthlings like to call a streetlight and spun into the other. Now there were only two left and he was on the same street as Iron Man, who was currently facedown on the sidewalk, getting beat up by a group of the same creeps chasing Spider-man.
"Incoming!" the teenager squealed with a wide grin spread under his mask, body twisting as he swung a very, very bewildered hoverbike of extraterrestrials towards the rest of their kin. All of them ended up sprawled out and knocked over like slimy bowling pins, well, except for the last vehicle-load behind him. Dang it. Thinking fast – and consequently impressing the Stark staggering to his feet – Spidey sprung off the pavement with one hand, then stuck his fingertips and toes to the metallic underside. He pressed himself close to the cool metal as the rider swerved around the street, once going right over the red-and-gold suit's head, trying to throw him off unsuccessfully. "Watch it, watch it, watchit!" The entire chariot tilted right almost vertically and tried to drag the spider along a nearby building, though he simply detached bar his right hand and dangled until they righted themselves. "Hey, little help for your friendly neighborhood Spider-man?"
"Right," Iron Man's robotic voice agreed as Mr. Stark raised an arm. A pair of finger-sized missiles launched themselves straight for their opponents and – from what the superhero could see underneath them – blew their heads off. The vehicle itself angled down and Spidey let go, barrel rolling to a stop on the street, right up to his science bro's boots.
"That's a headrush!" were the first words out of his mouth, despite his want to lay there on the nice, soft concrete and groan the word "ow" at his idol. "But don't try it at home, kiddies."
There was what sounded like a grimace in the older man's voice. "I wouldn't want to. And I'm in a million-dollar suit of high-tech armor."
"Brag much?"
"Stark!" Fury barked in their ears, making the vigilante flinch from his continuous laying position. "Three minutes!"
"J.A.R.V.I.S., put everything we got into the thrusters," Iron Man said as he took off with only a stiffening in his joints.
"I just did."
"Don't do anything stupid," Spider-man reminded him seriously. His chocolate eyes followed the suit when he swiftly got back on his feet, one barely visible through the hole that now had a spiderweb crack towards the edge.
A pause. "What, like you?" That pause was telling, the boy knew. It was what he did.
"Just…" He breathed a sigh before brightening his voice. "Don't die, 'kay? I think the world would miss Tony Stark."
"No duh."
The young hero laughed before swinging off to find more trouble and – because he was the trouble magnet – coming across it easily by nearly running into a squad of ten or twelve Chitauri fully armored and armed to the teeth when he set down to save webbing. He was down to his last pair of cartridges and the… whatever it was, war, didn't seem close to ending any time soon. His body instantly sprang into action as the first started firing at him, his mind instantly going into fight-mode, which was something like hit, dodge, parry, OH SHOOT THAT GUY HAS A KNIFE normally and was now going five times that speed as he was attacked from all sides, the main phrase being dodgedodgefliphitwebduckblockdeflectkickpunchOHDANGTHATGUYALMOSTTOOKMYHEADOFFBUTITDOESN'TMATTERBECAUSEDODGE!
Spidey's unpadded suit did nothing to protect him from the blows he couldn't escape, the fabric slowly but surely getting covered in more and more scorch marks from the freaky alien guns that grazed him. The vigilante was surrounded as a few more aliens joined their friends, replacing the few he was able to take out. Eventually, one got a hit in, slamming him to the pavement in the middle of a mid-air dodge and making him easy prey for the rest, who blithely rained down punches and kicks on his prone from. With two holding his arms and legs, he couldn't even curl into a ball or attempt some daring escape like the last Chitauri he had one-on-one time with. A choked gasp made its way out of his mouth as he got the breath knocked out of him, right before the weight pinning his arms down suddenly disappeared.
The freed limbs flashed up to knock the one that had its claws curled around his shins as hard as possible in the head, uneasily ignoring the creepy way it twitched after he knocked it out even as his eyes caught the telltale blur of a swinging bat. But when he turned, getting to his feet, Spider-man found that it wasn't a bat at all, it was a bow, though Hawkeye certainly seemed to be using it like a bat. And effectively, too. Until an extraterrestrial got clever and snatched it away. The blonde brought his fists up in a boxing stance but looked as if he knew it wouldn't be enough as the Chitauri encircled them.
"Hawkeye?" the teenager muttered hesitantly.
"Yeah, Spidey?" the man answered.
"What are you doing?"
"Saving you."
"Okay… well, how do you plan to save yourself?"
"… I didn't really think this through."
"That's obvious." Their enemies, who had previously been prowling around them and observing with something close to amusement, tightened their enclosure.
The young brunet let out a – slightly – unmanly little squeak. "New plan!" He roughly grabbed the other around the waist to his loudly expressed chagrin and shot off a string of webbing at the nearest building. With one swift yank, Spider-man launched them from the middle of the now rather vexed mob of Chitauri soldiers and into the air, leaving behind nothing but the echo of the hawk's surprised screech. Even the discarded bow was towed along for the ride – almost hitting Hawkeye in the face until he caught it.
"What are you doing?!" the agent shouted as they swung rapidly through the streets, narrowly missing a chariot. While the hero couldn't exactly perform his usual acrobatics with a passenger, it didn't stop a glob of webs from shooting back to clog up their mechanics.
"I," Spidey paused, banking around a corner, "am getting far way from the things that want to kill us." The duo flew upwards in an arc before getting caught in gravity's grip once more. "Tactical retreat. Regroup. Whatever." Apparently, that answer was good enough for the archer, since he didn't want to die anymore than the teen did, and they continued their jaunty little swing through the streets of the apocalypse. They had just turned yet again down another thoroughfare when there was a slight sputtering sound, like an empty bottle of ketchup. The colorfully clad superhero hastily put his other arm forward as he drew his left one back, the same two middle fingers curling down to touch his palm. The ketchup-bottle sound happened again. "Oh crap."
They started to fall down again. "What? What 'oh, crap'?"
"Out of web fluiiiid!" The answer dissolved into twin screams as the two mismatched males fell down, down, down… CLANG! That's a dumpster. THUD! And that's the purple birdy. Spider-man groaned from his position in the empty metal container, Hawkeye sprawled on top of him. "Ow…"
The older man grumbled something that sounded an awful lot like "I hate dumpsters" as he clambered out and left Spidey still laying on the bottom.
"I don't mind 'em," the vigilante moaned. "Unless I'm in 'em." He sat up stiffly before vaulting out to stand next to the blonde. "I say once again, ow." Despite his joshing tone, something fell flat as he scanned the area around them.
"Something wrong?"
"I'm out of web fluid," the boy grunted unhappily. "Means no more swinging, no more tying the weird alien things up, I have to fight with my fists and feet."
"So?" Hawkeye shrugged. Sure, he was mostly a long-distance sniper, but there was nothing wrong with hand-to-hand combat. The spider seemed quite good at it.
A sigh. "I… I don't like having to hold back all the time. I'm afraid I'll kill someone. I don't do that."
"I don't think anyone would complain if a few of these guys went bye-bye," he reasoned, successfully keeping a straight face contrary to the surprise he felt at the fact that this scrawny, super-strong figure before him was holding back.
"You don't know how their society works. All we've seen is the army," Spider-man breathed as he still recovered from his divebombing the dumpster and then acting the cushion for Hawkeye. "I don't want to be the cause of any more grief." The other hesitated, sure he wasn't supposed to have heard that last part.
"Look," Agent Barton started, "that's noble and all, but we need to get back. You coming?"
"Of course!" the younger exclaimed. In spite of the mask and goggles, his insulted expression came through loud and clear in his posture and voice. "You thought I was going to abandon you? Not cool." Spidey led the way out of the alley still talking, then abruptly socked the first Chitauri they came across in the face. The alien dropped like a sack of potatoes. "I'm gonna fight, doesn't mean I'm gonna like it."
And then they were in the thick of it again, though not so much that they were about to die like the last time. No, not that dire, but it was still a flurry of kicks and punches and flips – the last one mostly coming from the teenaged arachnid – then the retaliation of lasers, shrieks, and claws. Hawkeye would throw a fist over Spider-man's shoulder, hitting an incoming Chitauri, or Spider-man would full-on cartwheel over his blonde head and end up landing on one about to stab the man. There were a couple times when the hero would forget he was unable to use his web-shooters, would toss up his arm then mutter something not very flattering under his breath before annoyedly taking another extraterrestrial out. His plum-colored friend kindly ignored those few times – from what the teen could tell – and continued beating up Chitauri with his surprisingly durable bow.
"I can close it. Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down!" Agent Romanoff's voice suddenly spoke through the comms, slightly strained, during a lull in their fight.
"Do it!" Captain America immediately snapped.
"No, wait," Iron Man joined in.
"Stark, these things are still coming!"
"I've got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute," he revealed. "And I know just where to put it."
Captain Roger's tones came through again. "Stark, you know that's a one-way trip."
"Save the rest for the turn, J." The billionaire ignored the knowledge, speaking instead to his AI, who kept their part of the conversation private. Spider-man broke off from Hawkeye, jumping to wall-crawl up to the top of an apartment building with the other trailing behind on the ground.
"I thought you said you wouldn't do anything stupid," the smallest fighter reminded him in all gravitas.
"… stupid is a relative word."
"Mr. Stark—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, where did this 'Mr. Stark' thing come from?" he protested, trying and failing to change the subject on the teen's mind. "J, has he been calling me that this whole time?"
"I believe so, sir." Even the robot sounded downhearted.
"Well enough of that, reminds me of my dad," Iron Man brushed off. "Call me Tony." The suit was almost to the portal, pointed upwards with a rocket-type missile on its back, heading into the unknown. Into a hole in the sky, to the other side of the universe, to blow something up with a nuclear bomb.
"Whatever you say, Mr. Stark," the brunet murmured, and the man and his suit disappeared.
All inspiration for the blow-your-head-off bit with Iron Man goes to the movie Suicide Squad. Secondly, I promise all the words in the title of this chapter are real, go look "comess" up if you don't believe me.
And yikes, I'm sorry about the parts where it got so bland. My brain tends to be like an old car. It makes that sad sput-sput-sput sound and almost starts… but it doesn't.
Did you like where I ended? Tell me!
Lucky
To Vladimir Mithrander: True that. I'm just have a hopeless memory.
To EvenLoveLies: 'Cause it's not even a question of will he get into trouble, it's just when XD
To Matt (Guest): Okay, so my timeline for this story is kinda weird. In terms of time, we're obviously right smack dab in the middle of the first Avengers movie in the MCU. In terms of Spidey-timeline… well, there is none. My version of Peter doesn't follow any sort of canon and I've been making up his backstory from different sources as I go. So, this isn't Spider-verse, Homecoming isn't really a thing (consequentially, neither is Infinity War, Endgame, or Far From Home because I'm ignoring that part of the MCU and if Civil War happens, it'll be totally non-compliant with the movie), and I'm not following the original Spider-man movie trilogy or the Amazing Spider-man movies. All we know about Peter's backstory/timeline is that Uncle Ben is dead, Captain Stacy is dead, Gwen Stacy is dead, and Aunt May is dead (good gods, I just realized how many people in Peter's life I've killed…). And sadly, Ned isn't here. Hope this ramble answers your questions!
To Carl-the-strange: Oh, don't worry, y'all are actually getting close to that part. And I love some of the pairings people consider "weird" in crossovers. I can't find enough hp/pp, though, there's like, a black hole or something! I get bored with the usual Peter-pairings (Gwen, MJ, etc.) and really can't see Harry with Ginny sometimes.
To winfield56: Oh, no problem! Thank you, as well. I really don't mind, it's fine, and I'm glad you keep reading.
To SoraMalfoySlytherin: We're all mad here! XD (Some more than others…) I have a few scenes planned that I think you'll like…
To twilightserius: I'm sooooorrrrrryyyyy! *runs over, falls on knees* Take me back! I promise I'll update!
To Mink (Guest): Yeah, I know, I love that little tidbit and some of my favorite fics have a reformed Loki hanging around the Avengers and causing (minor) trouble. It's really fun to read. But I'm rather lazy and in this story, Loki's not being controlled, he's just the bad guy. Yes, this leaves less room for character development, but Loki's not going to be a humongous part of this fanfiction after a few chapters. I hope this doesn't cause you to stop reading, I don't follow a lot of canon.
To era-a-romance: Ahhhhh! I swear, half of my reviewers are clairvoyant! Am I just that predictable?! Okay, deep breaths… anyways, yeah, there'll be some stuff like that coming up. Everyone gripes about seeing that kind of thing more, but I can safely say it will happen rather soon. Thanks for the review!
To madsloth: I'm sorry for the… um… inconvenience? Problem? Something. Anyways, I'm sorry and I'll update the summary with something a little better. I was trying not to give anything away in the summary but still get people interested and get the warnings out. Again, I'm sorry. I hope you keep reading, but that's your choice. Things should make sense in later chapters and I'm fully aware of how slow I am.