Peter woke up feeling a lot better than he did last night, he did a series of stretches just to look for any tightness in his body that he wasn't currently aware of, and grimaced when he noticed the pain emanating form his right side. His ribs throbbed as he rested his arm across them. He took a few deep breaths as pain shot through his body. He supposed his enhanced healing hadn't had the time to activate.,
'Sit back down, right now." A voice called out from behind him, laced with so much authority that he was surprised when he turned around and found himself looking at a boy not much older than himself. The boy's eyes were stern, and his thick black eyebrows set in a hard line. His eyes were green, unbelievably so, and Peter felt like something was pushing down on him. Some unforeseen force, burying him underneath gallons and gallons of water. They contrasted against the boy's bronze colored skin.
"If you rip any of those stiches, I swear to gods, I'm gonna be the reason that you need more."
Both Peter and the other boy stood there for a few seconds. Peter couldn't tell whether the boy was serious or not, but the tone of his voice had a touch of finality to it and suddenly, Peter was insecure about his own abilities. So he let himself sit down on the bed where he woke up.
"So," The boy started while placing a plate of cookies on the desk near the door. "What do you do when you get roughed up like this and there's no one to save you."
Peter though for a moment. It was a strange question; one he'd never thought he have to answer. This certainly wasn't a normal occasion.
"Normally," He started after a few moments. "I don't find myself in this situation."
The boy gave him a side eye as he began moving around the room. Peter noticed how each one of his steps seem so deliberate. So full of sureness that Peter couldn't help but wonder if he himself walked with the same certainty.
The boy crossed the room and picked up something from off the top of the nightstand before going back and sitting at his desk. The two sat in silence as the door closed with a soft click.
"By the way. I made sure to keep your mask on. I know how, touchy you heroes get about your secret identities."
There was something off about the way he said heroes. Peter noticed I, he wasn't sure if the boy did or not, but he noticed it himself.
"Thank you." Peter said slowly. He could only describe the encounter as weird. There was simply no other explanation for it. The boy stared at him for a moment, there was a weird, openmouthed smirk on his face and one of his eyebrows raised. It made him look vaguely like a shark. A predator, and in some way shape of form, Peter was his prey.
And then it changed, just as fast as the look was there it disappeared, and the boy suddenly dawned a bright smile and his eyes twinkled.
"No problem." He stuck out a hand. "I'm Percy, by the way."
Peter took the boy's, no, Percy's hand and shook it. He was surprised by how tight the black-haired teens grip was, but he kept his cool none the less.
"Spider-Man." Peter said to which the boy nodded before sitting back in his chair.
"So," The green-eyed boy said. "Can you control spiders."
It was not what Peter expected, like at all, but he wasn't exactly sure about how to answer it. He had never tried, and it certainly never crossed his mind. Percy looked at him expectantly as if the answer was obvious. It was probably something that he should have thought about when he named himself Spider-Man. He felt himself blush in embarrassment and was glad that Percy couldn't see beneath his mask, that would be even more embarrassing. After a few more moments of deliberation, he answered.
"I don't think so."
Percy nodded with a thoughtful look on his face.
"I suppose that for the best, I think they already hate me as it is."
Peter nodded slowly. This was getting weirder and weirder as the time passed by.
"Anyway," Peter said. "I should probably get going. People to save, webs to slings, y'know, the works."
God why is this so awkward, Peter thought to himself while slowly making his way toward the window behind him.
"Yeah, no problem," Percy said easily to which Peter let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Feel free to drop by anytime. Preferably without the life-threatening injuries. You almost got blood on my carpet. My mom would have killed me."
The boy face was perfectly serious, yet for some reason, Peter was oddly comforted.
"Thanks." He said simply as he finally slid out of the window and shot a web without looking.
He then pulled himself along the line and was once again swinging through the air.
As he got further and further away from Percy apartment, his suit rang.
He answered it as soon as he could and tried not to let the nervousness slip into his voice.
"Hey Mr. Stark."
"Kid, where the hell have you been. I've got Friday telling me you haven't been home all night after you got ambushed while you were on patrol. What the hell was that footage by the way, I know for a fact that that suit's cams are better than that. And where the hell were you, did the suit get zapped or something, because there's a bunch of footage missing."
Peter thought for a moment, he'd didn't know how to explain the fact that he'd been unconscious and very close to death without having the man start to hyperventilate.
"I was at MJ's house, Mr. Stark. I guess the suit was damaged so and the missing footage is a glitch."
"I'll look over it later. You better get home or May's gonna be worried."
"Sure thing Mr. Stark, I'm on my way now."
"Good Kid. See you after school."
With that Stark was gone and Peter continued making his way home.
Wanda, tapped her foot anxiously on the floor of the rising elevator. The tension in her shoulders made it hard for her to keep her powers in check. The avengers tower still felt foreign to her, even if she had been welcomed here by the others. Her mind wandered; memories of her brother flooded into her bones in a way they had never done before. But there was also something else there, something more ancient. She suddenly felt a connection, to something she couldn't quite place, and visions suddenly assaulted her vision.
What came next was power. Something so different than her own and yet so startingly similar. Her vision was suddenly filled with blue, and her powers exploded around her.
She felt the gears of the elevator grinding to a stop, yet she could do nothing as she fell victim to her own powers.
The first was the figure of a pail woman, tears streamed down her face as her hands gripped around her neck, almost like she was being choked. On the floor, liquids moved toward the woman at a languid pace, yet the woman still seemed terrified either way. There were sounds, words that she couldn't quite make out, and an arm that clearly wasn't hers quivered as it struggles to lower itself to the side of the person that wasn't her.
There was a flash, and suddenly the scenery was different.
This time there was a battlefield. Bodies were scattered across the ground. The air around some of them seemed to flicker and blur.
The hand, her hand was holding onto a sword this time and her breathing was heavy and ragged. She looked around the battlefield, and her vision zeroed in on another person locked in battle with a hulking figure that she could not make out. Wanda squinted as she caught a glimpse of another figure approaching and two locked in battle. One with the same build as the one the girl was fighting.
It was an instinct, when her arm whipped out, and all she heard was the rushing of water. Her eyes widened as she looked down and saw that her arms had completely turned into a churning mass of water. She reared back and the sword in her hand went fly past her face. She felt herself lurch forward and watched as the sword shot forward and into the chest of the second monster like it was launched from high powered sling.
The scene flicked and switched rapidly, and she was suddenly in the elevator once again. Her magic slowly receded back into her body and Wanda fell to her knees. Her breathing was heavy as she tried to catch her breath and her vision swam. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears and black seemed to slip into the edges of her vision. Before she passed out, she heard the elevator ding and the words that just barely left her lips.
"Vision."
And in that very same moment, not far from her location, Percy Jackson drew in a breath. With Riptide clutched in his hand, he assessed the situation before him. In which a monster he had no knowledge stared him down. It glared at him with evil eyes, and breath and teeth so much worse.
'I's sorry," He said. "It seems I interrupted your dentist appointment."
The, thing, growled. And suddenly, Percy's head started to rumble.
"My master will eat your bones as dinner and your blood will be the mead used to quench his thirst! Your eyes will be used as floaties in my masters soup of victory! Let fire rain on this cursed realm and be forged anew in my masters image! Let every child and mother be feasted upon in halls of hell whilst their soul is still attached!"
For a moment Percy paused to process everything he'd just heard.
"First of all, how dare you? Secondly, holy Hades that was terrible. Did you not get the memo, everyone up here is off limits?"
Instead of answering, the thing snarled before lunging at Percy. The demigod quickly dodged and with a quick swing of his sword, the monster was turning into dust before he even hit the ground. However Percy stumbled as the monsters voice filled his head.
"Heed my warning demigod. My master will see to it that this world is wiped clean of humanity. Even those wretched gods of yours will be leeched of their essence when the end days come. My master will not rest until rivers of blood flow from here to the underworld."
Once again, Percy was left speechless. Everything in that monster mind was tainted, stained black with some corruption that Percy could feel shivers down his spine. It wasn't long before the corruption seeped from under his skin as the monster dissolved into the last few specks of golden dusk and swept up into the wind. The sea prince couldn't help but wonder how many people had eaten monster dust because of a battle like this one. He decided not to go any further with that thought, or at least, he'd try not to.
As Percy turned to walk away, he didn't noticed the card that had appeared in the place she the pile of monster dust had been sitting just moments before. He walked away, not noticing the way the shadows seemed reach out toward him in anger, or the pair of glowing red eyes that appeared above the letter, glaring at his back. The letter caught fire, and the eyes disappeared and suddenly, it was a normal alley again. No, monster, no demigod, no eyes, and no letter.
What Percy Jackson also didn't notice, was the slight pull of his powers as storm clouds started to form around stark tower, or the blur of red and blue that swung behind him.
