Chapter 3: Attack of the Floating Cape Man
I like how I've been taking this story pretty seriously, but the chapter titles say otherwise. I am a silly goose deep down.
Forcing her eyes open, Michelle tried to get her bearings.
The blast from the imposter had thrown her back, but thankfully she had already been putting some distance between herself and the potential fight, so she hadn't faced the full brunt of it like Peter must have.
After a few moments blinking the spots out of her eyes, Michelle saw that the fake Michelle was nowhere to be seen now. Instead, a man in archaic robes stood there. He wore a long red cape with a high collar, obscuring his head from Michelle's viewpoint behind him. For a second, she thought he was insanely tall, but then the cape fluttered, revealing that his feet were not touching the ground. He was floating.
That probably wasn't good. Floating meant either powerful tech or magic was involved, and Michelle didn't have experience with either. But maybe, if she was right about Peter, then he knew how to handle this.
She looked past the floating stranger. If she moved to the side to see around the cape (seriously, it was obnoxiously huge), she could see Peter slumped against the wall of the alleyway. There was a pool of blood forming under his head, and there was space of cracked and chipped bricks above him. Did he cause that upon impact?
Michelle suppressed a scream. If she was wrong about Peter, then he was dead.
She really hoped she was right. For Peter's sake.
"Lucky Spider," the floating man said with a slight Russian accent. "Your little girlfriend was quite perceptive. I had hoped to play with you, considering you will be the last Spider on my journey. Alas, I'll still get I need."
Raising a glowing hand, the man gestured, and Peter's limp body floated up too. Peter's head lolled forward, revealing the nasty gash staining his hair red. More red appeared when a slash spontaneously sliced the skin on his arms. Glass jars popped out of nowhere to collect the blood.
And suddenly MJ saw red a lot more figuratively.
The nearest weapon was an old, dirty frying pan. Without hesitation, Michelle grabbed it and rushed forward, bashing it against the man's side since that was the highest she could reach.
The man bent over, wheezing and cursing. He turned around. "You're still alive? You should have run when you had the chance. You won't be the first happy couple I destroy."
"He's not my boyfriend!" MJ shouted, readjusting her grip on the pan.
The floating man laughed. "They always say that! Ah, if only the Spiders knew how lucky they are, forever with love as an option. Why do you always push it away until it is too late?"
Okay, he was referencing spiders. Maybe that meant MJ was right about Peter. That was good. Probably. Unless that's what got him killed. "If you're trying to give me relationship advice, that's gross."
The man shrugged. "I'm simply rambling into the dead silence." He raised a hand towards MJ, lifting her up too.
Michelle struggled, despite not feeling anything to struggle against. Then she felt pressure around her throat. She scratched at her neck, but nothing was there. Her airway was being magically squeezed shut, and there was nothing she could do.
Oh wait, no, there was always something she could do. That was her core value.
She pulled her shoe off and chucked it at the floating man with all her strength. It connected with his groin, and he doubled over. It probably helped that her shoe was a steel-toed combat boot.
Michelle dropped to the ground, not quite catching herself well and banging her hip against the concrete. If she wasn't so focused on trying to breathe again, she would've screamed out in pain.
Looking up, the floating man had lowered by a few feet, and Peter had dropped too. That was . . . No, MJ was going to stop judging things as good or bad. She needed to focus on them simply getting out of this alive.
Grabbing her rusted pan more firmly. Michelle ran and leapt at the man, wrapping one arm around his neck and bashing at him with the pan in her other hand. He cried out. When he began to glow, MJ let go and began sprinting away, once more getting caught in his magic blast. She was pushed further down the alley, scraping against the ground and groaning in pain.
"You," the man growled. "You are the most tenacious girlfriend I have ever seen."
"Still not his girlfriend," Michelle muttered, trying to find the strength to stand again. She had never been in this much pain before, and it was very distracting.
"And I still don't care." The man pointed a finger at her. A glowing finger that looked ready to release a deadly laser or something.
Well. MJ appreciated the fact that she was going down fighting. She didn't want to die. But if she had to go, death by magic manic man was pretty darn cool.
Then the magic manic man was blasted away by a metal manic man.
"Get away from the kids, you perv!" Iron Man shouted in his metallic tone.
"Stark?" the floating man said. "What are you doing here, meddling in the lives of children?"
"I'm being a superhero. Duh. What are you doing here? Who are you even? And is that Stephen's cape? I think that's his cape. I'm calling Strange."
The floating man glared harshly. "If this world's Strange works with you, then I don't want to meet him. Besides, I have what I needed." He suddenly grinned. "You should hope that I succeed so we won't cross paths again." He twirled his hands around and opened a sparkling orange portal.
"Yeah, nope, now I wanna stop you just out of spite." Stark fired his repulsors again, but the floating man created a shield in the portal, and then it fizzled out of existence as if he had never existed at all.
"Crud," Stark muttered. He immediately landed by Peter. "Crap, he's lost a lot of blood. Friday, ask the staff to prep the Med Bay. And you," he pointed at Michelle. "How are you doing?"
Michelle blinked, lost for words for a moment. "I—I'm fine. Just a bit bruised. Don't worry about me. Just get Peter out of here."
"Working on it. I need to stop the bleeding first." Stark knelt by Peter and pulled some bandages and tourniquets from a slit in his armor. "Thank god I started packing these after Siberia," he muttered.
The massive amount of blood didn't bother Michelle as much as it should have. It was the way Peter's body seemed so lifeless as Iron Man wrapped the tourniquets in place, the way his head and arms flopped with no objection. "Is he going to be okay?" Surely Stark would know. He had to know. She was pretty sure it was half the reason the internship existed in the first place.
"He should be fine. I've got the best doctors on call." He glanced at her again. "Did cape man say anything about motive?"
"S—sort of. He said he was on a journey, and I think Peter's blood was the last thing he needed to complete it." Should she shoot her shot? She couldn't let herself fall out of the loop after this. Now she wanted to be involved, to understand. "He kept calling Peter a spider."
"That's weird." Stark didn't freeze. He was a businessman. He knew how to hide a reaction. "Maybe he assumed Pete's connection to me gave him a connection to Spider-Man too."
The suggestion could possibly make sense, if one ignored how surprised the floating man had been to see Stark at all.
Michelle took a breath. "I know Peter is Spider-Man."
Now Stark looked fully back at her. "Don't tell me he climbed into his room without noticing you were there. This kid seriously needs to work on his awareness."
"Actually, I was only 67% sure. Thanks for confirming."
The faceplate lifted up, revealing an unamused glare. "I will deal with you later. For now, head to Parker's place. I'm sending Happy over to watch you all while I get Pete some medical attention."
Michelle nodded, watching as Stark gently lifted Peter up before blasting off.
Somehow, knowing Peter had superpowers didn't relieve her worries.