"Tony's going to kill us," Katya hissed,as she crept amongst the -what could only really be described as rafters, large metal support beams that held up the frame- of the spaceship alongside Peter. When their parachutes had been deployed, Katya got tangled up in her for a terrifying moment, but before she could so much as call for Peter as she plummeted her suit dragged her upwards, as if it was magnetized almost, to his, where his parachute was working fine. They briefly checked eachother out to make sure they were okay, before their suits seemed to use some sort of gravitational pull to land them back on the ship, on the other side, where Tony and the Wizard weren't. It was like their suits knew where they needed to be. They made it onto the ship just as the back hatch was closing.
Part of her felt like they should've stayed on the bus. but it's not like she was going to let Peter go alone. And they clearly had a part to play, whether Tony liked it or not.
Katya'd ripped down the half mask of her suit- that had covered her face and nose, the only reason she was able to breathe out there- and given Peter a quick kiss on the masked cheek before urging him into the rafters with her to try to figure out exactly where they were. They still hadn't figured that out, but now they were watching Tony watch the Wizard from a higher platform be detained by what looked like hundreds of long, metal needles controlled by the smaller Alien man in front of him.
"In all the years that I've served Thanos," the Alien hissed -in English, to Katya's initial surprise, but it made sense-to the Wizard, who was suspended entirely off the ground in the bed of needles- "I have never failed him. But if I were to reach our rendezvous on Titan with the Time Stone still attached to your vaguely irritating person, there would be…judgment."
The needles looked like they were beginning to drill into parts of the Wizard's body, including his face, emitting faint, blue light at points of contact, but the Wizard didn't cry out.
"Give me the stone."
Tony was watching all of this from a platform high above the alien and the wizard, his Iron Suit still on save for the mask. Suddenly, a red flash of cloth- the Wizard's cape, which was apparently sentient- tapped Tony on the arm. Instinctively he began to fire up his repulsors, until he realized it was just the cloak.
"Wow, you are one seriously loyal piece of outerwear, aren't you?"
Peter moved down a rafter, Katya trying to grab for his arm to stop him but missing, and used a web to repel down to Tony's level. Katya bit back a sigh, and scuttled down alongside him.
"Yeah, er, speaking of loyalty," Peter said at full volume, clearly directed at Tony. He let go of the web and flipped into a standing position. Reluctantly, Katya hopped down from the last of the rafters, landing in a crouch beside him before straightening up. Tony whirled around.
"What the-"
"-I know what you're gonna say-" Peter interrupted,
"-you should not be here-"
Katya jumped in. "We were gonna go home-"
"I don't want to hear it-" Tony cut her off.
"-But it was such a long way down-" Peter continued, "- and Katya got stuck in her parachute and then kinda got stuck to me, and I just thought about you-"
"-And now I gotta hear it." Tony sighed wearily.
"-And we kinda got stuck to the side of the ship-" Katya tried to explain.
"These suits are ridiculously intuitive, by the way," Peter continued for her, "So if anything, it's kind of your fault that we're here. "
There was a beat. That was not what she was going to say.
"What did you just say?!" Katya wasn't sure if Tony was befuddled at the stupidity or the disrespect.
"Ah-no- I take that back, but, and, erm, so, now- now we're here in space." He glanced to Katya, who shot him a glare. That could have been handled so much better.
"Yeah, right where I didn't want you two to be-" Tony took a step closer, lowering his voice in frustration. "This isn't Coney Island. This isn't a field trip. This is a one way ticket- don't pretend you've thought this through-"
"We did think this through!" Peter protested. No they hadn't.
"No you didn't."
"Yes we did!
"You could not have possibly thought this through-"
"You can't be a friendly neighborhood Spiderman if there's no neighborhood." Peter said, his voice serious enough to stop Tony's rebuttal. "Okay, maybe that didn't make sense, but you know what I'm trying to say."
There was a pause, and Tony took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. He sighed. "Come on," he waved to the pair of them reluctantly, "We've got a situation."
He lead them over to the edge of the landing he'd been standing on earlier, where the Wizard was now being clearly pierced in multiple places by the hovering needles. It was a little hard to hear from so high up, but Katya thought she heard grunts and small cries of pain.
"See him down there?" Tony asked rhetorically, "he's in trouble, what's your plan? Go."
Katya immediately began to scan her surroundings to clock the different ways to get down there, and what she could see of the level the Alien and Wizard were on for any exit or entry points. She spotted a few, and thought maybe if-
"Okay. Have you ever seen that really old movie Aliens?" Peter asked the pair of them. Katya furrowed her brow for a moment- she'd seen it, she thought, at some point, but she didn't get how- and then it clicked.
"Oh! Yeah! Yeah, that could work-"
Tony sighed, and rolled his eyes.
After Katya and Peter'd explained to Tony how and where everyone needed to be stationed for the idea to execute correctly, Tony actually listened to them and started down towards the level where the Wizard and the Alien were having their- it wasn't really a discussion, and couldn't really be called an argument, but whatever it was, the Wizard was clearly losing.
"Painful, aren't they?" The Alien's voice slithered around the room, "They were originally designed for microsurgery, and any one of them-"
Tony announced his arrival with a heavy thud from the Iron Suit's landing, his repulsors already charging up. The alien whirled around.
"Could end your friend's life in a minute." The alien finished, speaking now to Tony.
From behind the Iron Mask, through comms, Katya could hear Tony correct, "I gotta tell ya, he's not really my friend. Saving him is more of a professional courtesy."
A large, heavy metal object Katya couldn't discern from a weapon or debris suddenly levitated behind the Alien. "You've saved nothing," A second hunk of metal on the other side of him did the same, "Your powers are inconsequential compared to mine."
"Yeah, but the kids've seen more movies." Tony quipped, before blasting a hole in the side of the ship with his repulsor. Katya sprang into action from her spot on the rafters, sending out a grappling hook to the back of Peter's suit and holding fast whilst Peter lunged forward to web up the Wizard as everything began to get sucked out of the hole Tony'd created in the wall. He reached the end of her grappling hook's reach, which stopped both him and the wizard, at the very mouth of the hole. Suddenly, what looked to be Iron Spider legs sprung from Peter's back, helping him to brace himself against the vacuum of space. .
"Yes!" He cried in victory, before noticing the spider legs. "Wait, what are those?"
Katya retracted her grappling hook, pulling the pair of them back into the ship to safety as Tony quickly patched up the hole. As they'd hoped, the Alien himself had gotten sucked out, along with whatever metal debris he'd been controlling, but the Wizard was safe in Peter's arms.
Peter's spider legs retracted and he tried-and failed- to introduce himself to the cape, who just bypassed him to wrap around it's master. Tony let his suit fold back up into nanotech, leaving him in street clothes, shaking his head in frustration.
The Wizard managed to recover from all of this astonishingly quickly, as he sat only until his cape was secure around his shoulders again before addressing Tony, "We've got to turn this ship around."
Tony scoffed. "Yeah, now he wants to run. Great plan."
"No, I want to protect the stone." The Wizard emphasized. He spoke like a character from a Classics novel, with lofty cadence and everything. But what 'stone'?
Tony walked past him, and kept walking, towards what must have been the front of the ship, as it had a large viewport, a pilot's chair, and a control panel.
"Yeah, and I want you to thank me. Go ahead, I'm listening."
"For what?" The Wizard drolled, "Nearly blasting me into space?"
Tony whirled around. "Who just saved your magical ass? Me!"
Katya wanted to mention that it had been Peter's idea, but bit the comment back.
"I seriously don't know how you fit your head into that helmet." The Wizard's voice was flat.
"Admit it," Tony snapped, "You should've ducked out when I told you to. I tried to bench you, you refused-"
"Unlike everybody else in your life, I don't work for you."
Katya watched this exchange like a tennis match, a brief glance at Peter telling her he was as confused as she was.
"And due to that fact," Tony continued, "We're now in a flying donut, billions of miles from earth, with no back up-"
"Hey-" Katya protested.
"-We're back up!" Peter finished. Tony waved their words away.
"No, you're stowaways. The adults are talking."
The Wizard shook his head briefly. "I'm sorry, I'm confused as to the relationship here. Are they your wards?" He paused, "Are these your children?"
"No." Peter answered quickly. An awkward beat passed, and he stepped forward as if for a handshake. "I'm Peter, by the way."
The Wizard regarded him for half a moment. "Dr. Strange."
Peter stepped back, glancing at Katya, distressed. "Oh, we're using our made up names. Erm, I'm Spiderman. And this is…" he trailed off and looked to her. What the hell was he doing bringing her into this? She wasn't even a superhero, she didn't have a name.
"Missulena" she blurted, the first thing she could think of. Peter seemed to consider it for a moment before offering her an approving nod. Katya wrinkled her nose at him.
"This thing's on autopilot, it's self-correcting its course." Tony announced from his position near the control panel as if that entire exchange hadn't just taken place.
The Wizard- Dr. Strange- made his way over to Tony. "Can we control it? Fly us home?"
There was a pause, but Tony was pacing. Katya knew that pace- he had an idea, and he didn't like it.
"Stark?" Dr. Strange prompted.
"Yeah."
"Can you get us home?"
"Yeah, I heard you." He stopped pacing. "I'm just not so sure we should."
Dr. Strange rounded on him. "Under no circumstances can we bring this stone to Thanos," his voice had a shake to it, but it was deathly serious. "I don't think you understand what's at stake here-"
"What? No, it's you who doesn't understand-" Tony closed the space between them, his voice shaky. "Thanos has been inside my head for six years, since he sent an army to New York, and now he's back-" Tony's voice was rising. "And I don't know what to do. But I don't know if it's a better idea to fight him on our turf or his, because you saw what they did- what they can do."
Katya's eyes were still trailing both of the men, Tony's tone putting her on edge, and she felt Peter's hand find her own and squeeze, for both of their benefits. He was clearly uncomfortable too.
Tony was still talking. "At least on his turf he's not expecting it. So I say, we take the fight to him. Doctor." He paused to let that sink in, the intensity of the two men's eye contact sending a shiver down Katya's spine. "Do you concur?"
Dr. Strange took a breath. "All right, Stark. We go to him. But you have to understand, it comes between saving you, or the kids, or the time stone…I will not hesitate to let any of you die."
Peter squeezed Katya's hand harder.
"I can't, because the universe depends on it."
"Nice" Tony said, patting the Doctor on the chest, "Good moral compass. We're straight." He turned and walked away. He nearly passed Peter and Katya, but paused, and patted each of their shoulders on either side, as if knighting them.
"All right guys. You're Avengers now." It sounded like an afterthought.
Katya's stomach dropped, but she couldn't help a small smile cross her lips as she watched Peter soak the statement in, his chest almost visibly swelling with pride.