A/N: Welcome back! I was hoping to have this chapter up on Saturday, but then was having internet issues and couldn't upload it…grumble grumble…. Plus the Backrooms Wiki (my main source for information when writing this fic) made the bizarre decision to delete its pages on Level Fun and the Partygoers, so I had to scour the internet for other information on those topics. Anyway, here we are, finally, at the new chapter.

Please read, review, and enjoy!

I do not own Marvel or the Backrooms.

As Bucky stood in front of the table with the can of Almond Water, he suddenly fell over on his back. The can fell to the floor, and another one of the smiling creatures emerged from under the tablecloth. The thing grasped for his flesh with its mouth-hands.

But Nebula was faster.

She sent one of her batons spinning through the creature's head; more yellow paste spattered the wall behind it, while the baton ricocheted off the floor and flew back into her hand. The creature looked up at her with its one remaining eye, its arms still for the moment. She tackled it off Bucky, pinned its squirming arms to the ground with her batons, and smashed its head into the table. The corner of the table, dripping with yellow slime, burst out the back of the creature. Its body went limp.

Bucky sat up, gasping. "That thing was under the damn table?"

Nebula stood up. Clearly these things weren't going to play fair. She held out her hand; Bucky grasped it, and she pulled him to his feet. "You okay?"

"I'm good," Bucky replied. He glanced at the creature's corpse. "Remind me to never get on your bad side."

Suddenly, three more of the creatures leapt from behind a wall about five yards behind Bucky. How many of these damn things were there? Nebula pointed at them. "Behind you!"

Bucky whirled around and groaned. "You've got to be shitting me."

The three charged towards her and Bucky alarmingly fast. Bucky reared back his arm and punched the first one in the face, but a second grabbed him and shoved him into the wall. Nebula stabbed her batons through the third's chest and flung it onto the table. The two cans of Almond Water Bucky had left on the table clattered aside. The creature grasped for her with its arms, but she leapt atop the thing and pinned its arms down with her knees.

She glanced over at Bucky. He swung his metal fist into the thing that had him pinned to the wall. It staggered backward, its face even more misshapen than before from the blow. Meanwhile, the creature he had originally punched got back up and rushed towards him. He somersaulted to the side, then kicked its legs out from under it. But as it fell, it grabbed him by the legs and pulled him down with it. The second one clambered atop him too.

Nebula grunted, removed her batons from the creature's chest, and stuck them through its eyes instead. Hopefully that would incapacitate it long enough.

She leapt off the table and drove her elbow into the back of one of the yellow things atop Bucky. It collapsed slightly before turning its ever-smiling head to face her. Before she could attack it again, the third creature grabbed her from behind and threw her into the wall, her batons still stuck in its face. So much for blinding the damn thing. It seemed like as long as their heads were still intact, they weren't going to stop attacking.

But before the thing could attack her, an arrow flew into the back of its head with a meaty thwack. The creature froze, then emitted an ululating screech, despite never moving its mouth. Smoke drifted from the back of its head as the odor of burnt flesh permeated the air. The creature fell forward stiffly. Once it was lying facedown, Nebula could see that the arrow had melted a large hole in the back of its head, with liquefied cephalic remains dripping down its backside.

Behind Bucky and the two creatures atop him, standing in the doorway back to the room they had arrived in, were two more of those things. One of them was holding a bow, and had already shot another arrow into one of the creatures on Bucky.

What was this, some rival faction of the yellow creatures?

The targeted creature shrieked as the arrow dissolved its backside. Bucky grabbed it by the head and slammed it into the final creature, knocking it off him. Nebula ran towards it, then spin-kicked it to the ground.

Nebula turned to the two other creatures standing in the doorway. She marched towards them, ready to deal with them too, when the one without the bow raised its arms. "Wait, wait, wait, stop, we're not them!" it said. "These are just disguises so we blend in. Quickly, there's a safe place this way – come with us. More of those things'll be coming."

These things sure were grasping at straws now.

Nebula started, "If you think I'm coming with you-"

The left creature grabbed its head, twisted it around, and pulled it off. It wasn't solid; it had been hollowed out to act as a helmet. Underneath was a boy with short brown hair. Nebula tilted her head. There was something strange about him, almost like she'd seen him before but couldn't recall where. Usually she never forgot a face….

"I'm Peter," he said. He started to extend his hand to her, but then looked down at the hooked yellow mockery of a hand on the end of his arm, and pulled it back. He pointed to the yellow creature with the bow and arrow. "This is Kate. Don't worry, we're not with them."

"Have I seen you somewhere before?" Bucky asked as he got up. "I feel like I have."

"Yeah, I'm Spider-Man. We fought each other at that battle at the airport, in Germany, and then fought together at the Battle of Earth. I know neither of you recognize me, and the 'why?' behind that is a really long, magic-related story, but for now we need to get out of here. More of those Partygoers are gonna be coming; there's like, 200 in each hive."

"Partygoers?" Nebula asked. "That's what you call them?"

"Yeah. This place looks like it's decorated for a party, and they're here…ergo, Partygoers," Kate said.

If nothing else, Nebula supposed, "Partygoers" was better than "yellow things."

Kate removed her disguise's head too; she had long black hair, and didn't look much older than Peter.

"C'mon, we've gotta – oh God, your arm!" Peter gasped.

Nebula looked over at Bucky. Two large, circular incisions from the things' – Partygoers' – teeth were on his flesh-and-blood arm, and the skin around them was turning deep purple.

"What the hell does that mean?" Bucky asked.

"Kate, go back to the hideout. Get some Almond Water, fast," Peter said.

She pointed behind Bucky and Nebula. "There's some over there. On the table."

Nebula grabbed the two unopened cans. "What do we need these for?"

"That stuff's safe for us to drink, but it's lethal to the Partygoers," Kate said. "Survival Tip #1: don't get bitten. But if you do, dousing the bite with Almond Water seems to undo its effects." She strode over to the two Partygoers she'd shot and removed the arrows from them. "Also, dipping any weapons you have in Almond Water works like a charm for killing the bastards."

Bucky grunted in pain, while Nebula ripped the top off one of the cans. "And what exactly are those effects?" he asked.

"You'll turn into one of them," Peter said.

"So they're like zombies?"

"Basically."

Nebula upended the can of Almond Water over Bucky's wounds. It sloshed over his arm and onto the floor, making the already-damp carpet wetter still. But as soon as the clear liquid came in contact with the bite marks, the purple coloration around them faded, and the injuries themselves slowly closed.

A rather obvious question then struck her.

"If you're still human, then how do you know what happens if you get bitten by these things and aren't cured fast enough?"

"It wasn't always just the two of us," Kate said. Suddenly, more Partygoers' singing became audible from behind them. Kate put her disguise back on, as did Peter. "Come on, go!"

They all dashed back into the room Nebula and Bucky had arrived in, then left through another doorway at the opposite end of the room. They turned down a corner, the singing slowly fading away. After another bend in the hall, Peter opened a door and waved the others in. He shut it behind them, dropped a metal bar into a bracket on the wall to lock it, then tugged on a chain hanging from the ceiling. Three globes mounted to the walls in the corners illuminated, casting a soft glow over the room. Stacks of chairs and tables were piled about halfway between them and the back wall, coming about a foot shy of the low ceiling. In the middle of the barricade, one of the chairs had had the rungs connecting its legs cut off, providing a crawl space to the far side of the chairs and tables.

Peter and Kate removed their disguises once more. "Welcome to Fort Spiderhawk," Peter said.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Spiderhawk?"

Peter pointed to himself. "Spider-Man."

Kate did the same. "Hawkeye."

"Spiderhawk," they said together.

"Since when are you Hawkeye?" Bucky asked.

"Since Clint retired and let me have the name," Kate replied.

"He retired? I thought he was gonna be, like, 95 and still letting those arrows rip."

"How did you two get here?" Nebula asked.

"Neither of us know," Kate said. "We were in another place before this, though. Some yellow maze with no other people or creatures anywhere."

"Those buzzing lights were so annoying," Peter said.

"That's where we ran into each other. After a few days of us wandering together, I got the brilliant idea to break through one of the ceiling panels, and now we're stuck in this hellhole. C'est la vie."

"How long have you been here?" Nebula asked.

"Few months, I think," Peter said. "My Spider-Sense is pretty good at telling time, but after a certain point I stopped keeping track."

He and Kate removed the rest of their Partygoer costumes as well. Bucky pointed to the red-and-blue suit Peter wore underneath. "Now that I remember. Looks a bit different than last time I saw it, but it's still a Spider-Man suit."

It wasn't metallic like the suit he'd been wearing on Titan, but it did look familiar. And didn't he have his mask off after the end of the battle? She should've remembered right away where she'd met him before…but it was like the harder she tried focusing on her memories of him, the blurrier they became.

"I made this one myself," Peter said. "Just don't expect any fancy Stark tech or anything in it; I'm taking a…simpler approach to things this time."

Kate gestured to the barricade. "After you. This whole area's safe, but I'd still prefer if we stayed behind our defenses."

"Defenses" seemed like a strong word for a bunch of stacked chairs, but then again, they'd been in this place longer than Bucky and Nebula had. She'd just have to take their word for it.

They crawled through the gap beneath the chair. The corner of the room contained a table covered in several battered notebooks and cans of Almond Water, a pair of sleeping bags, and a quiver of arrows and a Spider-Man mask hanging from hooks on the wall.

"It's not much," Kate said, "but it's home."

Peter grabbed four cans of Almond Water from the table and gave one to each of them. "Drink up. It's more filling than you'd think. Now, I'm sure you have lots of questions-"

She did.

"-so fire away. We'll answer them as best we can."