Metamorphosis
Tony furrowed his brows, a grunt catching in his chest as he forced his eyes to open. His head swam, the muffled ringing that played in his ears so loud he almost couldn’t hear the voice speaking to him.
Alarmed, he shot up.
It took a painstaking moment to absorb his surroundings, between the ongoing static of his HUD, to the static that played in his own head. He swayed as he crawled up on his knees, his head working in slow motion, clearing the cobwebs that clouded the corners of his vision.
"Where — damnit,” he grimaced, a sharp breath rattling through his teeth. His back screamed with a pain that ran to his heels, his left shoulder aching with the clear sign of taking the brunt of the damage.
It was raining.
Tony knitted his brows, blinking away the dissipating vertigo. Water rained down from the sky, drizzling onto the metal of his suit — the faint pitter-patter of liquid hitting alloy a distant sound as his hearing slowly returned to him.
Aside from the rain, it was quiet.
Tony swallowed past the knot in his throat. “Anyone still standing?”
His voice croaked as he spoke, and as quickly as his body would allow him, Tony levered himself up and set his feet on the ground — mud. His boots momentarily slipped as he struggled to find balance.
The rain that gently came down wasn’t rain at all. No clouds were in the sky to downpour the water that trickled along his suit. It was the water from the Hudson River next to them, rolls of waves crashing from the combustion of magic that still crackled in the air.
The atmosphere felt like an explosion of fireworks had trickled down from above.
Tony waited while his head swam, unknowingly panting, attempting to suck in breath after breath.
Whatever knocked them down — it knocked them down good.
Working his throat, he spoke louder.
“Anyone copy?”
His nerves were shaking, his muscles trembling, his whole world consumed by the ringing that ripped through his ears. All of it was the least of his concern, the last thing he could focus on.
Immediately upon standing, he began to scan his surroundings.
“Maximoff!” The name escaped his lips like a command, forced out without so much a second thought. "Where are you!"
Tony took a step forward, his knee buckling and nearly taking him down to the ground. Movement hurt, the very act of lifting his chest bringing black spots to the edges of his eyes.
He didn’t let up, dragging his legs, following the circular target that remained stationary on his HUD. It wasn’t until he approached the figures hidden against the bridge’s pillar that he stopped. It was where brick still crumbled to the ground like the river water that rained along the bank, where pieces of an arrow laid scattered along the ground.
Had it not been for what functions of his suit were still up and running, Tony wasn’t sure he’d have been able to find the two — Steve’s stealth uniform cloaking him in the dark, and Natasha’s body hidden in the black leather of her suit.
“Where is she?” Tony cut right to the chase, the timbre of his voice within his helmet creating an echo through the underpass of the bridge.
Leaning heavily on his knees, Steve looked up, his one hand never moving from its hold on Natasha’s shoulder. Mud coated the one side of his face, his blond locks drenched and pressed harshly against his forehead. Whereas he responded, eyes open and alert, Natasha remained unresponsive from her position on the ground.
“I don’t know.” Steve gave out an exasperated sigh, his shoulders heaving with grievance. “The blast threw us back, I don’t —”
“She’s over here!”
Tony snapped his head up, careless to any signals his HUD sent his way. He was following the source long before his suit pointed him in the direction to go, the burn in his back a thought he couldn’t dwell on in the moment.
Sam’s voice called from further away, from the second pillar down and on the opposite side. Tony swore it took him ages to get there, his legs not moving nearly fast enough, his body screaming for a break he knew would have to wait.
Coming around the back end of the pillar, he saw Sam’s figure first. The hot flares of his broken wing still sparked with damage, and they hit the bricks of the bridge’s column.
It wasn’t until he turned further in that he finally caught sight of Wanda, though Clint was the most visible of the three, squatting near the young girl and hovering over her with a palpable protectiveness.
Sam spared Tony the briefest of glances, a glower in his eyes noticeable underneath the bridge’s lights.
“I don’t think she was expecting that to happen,” Sam muttered, reaching into his thigh pocket to yank out a roll of gauze. Not even bothering to try and open it with gloved hands, he ripped the seam apart with his teeth, before placing the bandage along the bleeding head wound that dripped along Wanda’s forehead.
Like Natasha across the way, she gave no sign of responsiveness. It wasn’t until Clint removed his fingers from along her neck, seemingly content with what he found, that Tony let himself breathe out a sigh of relief.
“None of us were,” Clint muttered, his voice raggedly and strained. With a disgruntled frown, he let himself rest down on his knees, his back hunching forward with exhaustion and pain he couldn’t hide.
There was a brief pause, only filled by the labored breathing that came from them all.
Tony shifted on his feet, laying a hand firmly on the archers shoulder. The touch was unusual.
“Did you see where Peter went?”
Clint craned his head behind him, showcasing one lens of his purple night vision goggles that had cracked, the other missing completely. He quickly looked around, left and right before shaking his head all together.
“No clue.” He tried to shrug off Tony’s hand as he reached into his quiver. The billionaire didn’t release his grip, not even as Clint breathed a harsh curse. “Dammit. I'm down to one."
Tony didn’t need to hear any more.
As quickly as his jets could roar to life, he lifted in the air, the act so fast that it knocked Clint off to his side.
His quiver shook along his back, rattling the holder with an impact that left the archer stunned.
The bridge’s lights began to shrink the higher Tony went, and the further in the sky he ascended, the quieter his repulsors became.
Slowly, he decreased power as he reached over the height of the Queensboro Bridge.
“FRIDAY, turn on thermal mode.”
The colors of his screen oscillated like a spinning wheel, rotating with change until they landed on the bright orange and blue palettes that highlighted every heat signature from down below.
Tony’s eyes scoured the ground like a fine tooth comb, slow and gentle precision that intensified each beat of his heart. His pulse ripped through his muscles, thumping along his skin in a way that made his skin sore.
Looking high and low with miles of land covered, the search repeatedly came up empty.
“Scan again,” Tony dryly demanded.
"It shouldn’t be that hard to find him. Just look for the red and blue spandex." Sam insisted, his voice hoarse against the line.
Tony elected to ignore the unnecessary commentary. As desperately as he wanted to shut off the comms, he was too busy studying each passing object, over and over again until his vision grew blurry.
Static crackled before, "I’m going back on the bridge for high ground. Unless you’ve got different orders, Cap."
Silence met the line. Tony could hear the whirr of his own suit, the sound of his scans running diagnostics while his HUD picked up images from miles away.
Finally,
"Wanda and Natasha are down for the count." Steve’s voice was tense, raw. Notably, he didn’t directly respond to the archer. It was a statement, no order given.
Despite knowing it was absolutely not the time for a comeback, Tony couldn’t help himself.
“Wanda wasn’t supposed to be here to begin with.” The bite in his tone was almost as unshakeable as the sigh he heard come from Steve.
"So like I was saying," Clint quickly tossed back, the unmistakable clank of his grappling hook breaking through. "I’m positioned on the top cantilever. Get me target, and I’ll get a lock."
Pedestrians far away, stray animals, the ongoing traffic — none of it was what Tony was looking for. The thermal heat of blue and orange began to blur into one the longer he looked, morphing into something his eyes couldn’t make out.
His brow creased tightly together, confusion settling in where panic hadn’t taken over. It didn’t make sense — surely the kid couldn’t have gone far.
Something about the possibility that he had churned his stomach with a fierce, derelict fear.
"Sam, stay grounded and tend to Wanda,” Steve ordered, his voice slicing through Tony’s thoughts like a scolding knife.
Tony slowly hovered higher, increasing the radius on his scans. Ten miles, twenty, thirty...
"Already on it." Sam answered succinctly.
"I don’t see anything." Clint barely held back the clipped edge in his voice."No red. No blue. Stark, you got anything?"
His neck slowly panned from one side to the next, taking in every inch of the city, every centimeter that touched his screen.
And then,
Tony felt it long before he saw it.
Like a gust of wind, a shot of volatile air that charged towards him. Adrenaline surged into the next breath that pulled into his lungs, a gasp interrupted mid-intake.
On the ground, Steve yelled — howled with implacable panic.
“Tony, watch ou—!”
Solid, amorphous sediment struck him hard in the chest. Like a rocket with his own name exploding on impact.
Tony didn’t need the comms to hear his name being called out. Steve’s roar from below was somehow louder than the roar of his own jet boots.
The strike didn’t send him back, didn’t send him tumbling through the air or straight to the ground. Tony’s eyes widened as the symbiote latched to his chest with limbs like a spider, spreading across the plate of his suit and wrapping far along his back.
With one brutal move, it yanked him forward.
His boots hit the ground with sparks, his heels digging into the soil of earth in a desperate attempt to regain the upper hand. The repulsor energy sputtered and left a trial of smoggy haze in its wake. Burning through the dirt until a fire lit, flames that set off a cloud of smoke.
Heart in his throat, Tony felt his neck scream with the whiplash of forward movement. His body slammed forward, making impact against another.
Peter.
Face to face with Peter.
There was no color to his suit. The red and blue was gone; in its place a perverse, charred darkness deep as midnight, creeping further up along the mask that covered his face. Jet black coal, oily shadows that spread out of him, protruding like barbed wire, tangling around Tony with twisted, razor-sharp movement.
Tony grabbed the symbiote strand latched to his chest with both hands, never looking down as he gripped it, clenched it. His fingers curled around the twitching limb, the stem giving off palpitations that nearly matched the hammer of his own pulse.
The whiteness of Peter’s lenses had taken on the same undoing. Shrouded in dripping sludge, driblets that fell from his forehead — down onto his chin, slithering along the spider emblem that rested across his chest. Roots bathed in ooze crusted along it, steadily obliterating the insignia.
Peter tilted his neck to the side. A deafening, sickeningly crrracccccccccck broke into the air with each of his jagged movements.
“͙̪Y̘͓̼ͅoͅu.͉͚̝͉͙.̙.͇̞̖dͅo̼̪n’̫t͎͈͔͔͖̬.̹̯..̠̟̠͇̳̰̞co̰͈̼ͅͅn̫̫͉͚̻̳̜t͎r̺o͓͙͚̜̫̭ͅl̘ͅ m͚e̖.̞͈̪̰̱”
The voice that came from his throat wasn’t his own. His throat gurgled caustically, reaching radical, sinister depths as it croaked along the vocal cords that were so clearly Peter’s.
Anger emerged over the rising dread that stifled through Tony’s very being.
What part of Peter was still left?
His breath lodged in his throat, his jaw tightened threateningly.
Was there any?
He jerked, instinctively fighting to get away. Hands grabbed onto the vines that encased around him, repulsors that lit ablaze and shot copious energy. Blasts that did no damage.
“You’re right,” Tony kept his grip on the symbiote, the repulsors on his palm blasting to life in an attempt to separate the substance from his armor. He kept his attention focused intently ahead, eyes never leaving Peter — not even as the heat from his repulsors began to blur against his HUD. “But I sure as hell care about you.”
A growl sounded deep from within Peter’s chest. Guttural, jarring.
Feral.
“Don’t make me do this, kid.”
There was no telling who was behind that mask anymore, if it were even a person at all. Even the outline of his figure had been distorted, a perpetual shower of ethered sap that soaked through. Ooze that turned a body into a blended, fused leviathan.
Tony’s face twisted beneath his helmet, his jaw locking into place.
“Give it all you’ve got, FRI!”
A murmur of his suit leveled into a resounding hum. Higher pitched, increasing. Expanding. Intensifying.
The thrum grew, the power generating. A mechanical purr that Tony could feel, a heat against his chest that sweltered against his skin, even through the alloy of his suit.
His vision fractured as the unibeam on his chest flashed with ignition.
It shot without warning.
A storm vortexted around him as the blast sent him barreling backwards. Bright colors of blue and white sizzled deep into his retinas, so powerful that his suit struggled to remain in function. So strong that it threw him back, flying through the air without the aid of his jets.
Tony landed on the ground hip first, tumbling along the river bank. Armored, metal fingers dug into the mud, deep four-lined crevices that excavated the land.
Something firm latched onto his ankle, bringing him to a stop before gravity ever could. Yanking him forward, dragging him through the same soiled ground he had been tossed along.
“Shi —!”
Tony was thrown on his feet, his body making impact again with another. His chest smacked into Peter’s, knocking the wind straight out of his lungs.
Suddenly, there was no air.
Dots began to creep in along the corners of his eyes. Through the hazy fade of his vision, he watched Peter’s arm swing back, the limb entombed with the rancid substance that swathed his body.
His mouth opened like a fish out of water, desperate to shout. Nothing filled his lungs.
No air.
Tony threw his arm up, attempting to block the attack.
Peter grabbed hold of it, tightly. Cracking through the metal of his suit. The other arm found its momentum, thrusting forward without hesitation.
First hit landed against his jaw. His suit cracked. His HUD fell into ongoing static.
Tony gasped a shaky inhale, fighting to get air back into his lungs.
Second hit, uppercut. Alarms blared within his helmet.
Tony reached out, grabbing the nearest thing he could without having the perfect sight to see — it was Peter’s wrist.
He clung to it, squeezed it.
And twisted it back.
Peter’s body fell into motion, his front now facing the opposite way, his back now facing Tony.
Without letting himself think, without deliberation, Tony moved with pure instinct. His free hand went for Peter’s face, grabbing his chin, squeezing it just as harshly as he did his wrist.
Peter let out a shout, a growl of frustration. As he ducked low, and as he slipped out of Tony’s grip, his leg kicked from behind. His heel made merciless contact on Tony’s kneecap.
Both men fell.
Peter with a snarl. Tony with a curse.
He looked down, managing what little breaths he was granted, blinking away the stars that swirled in his vision.
A look of surprise fell across his face, the LEDs of his helmet dimming in magnitude. Tony’s hands clutched not just in fists, but holding a grip on the mask he'd pulled off Peter’s head.
The Spider-Man mask.
He turned it around, confusion just as heavy as his shock. It was the color he had known it to be, the red and white that defined Peter — defined Spider-Man. Not a trace of greasy substance could be found. Tony stretched it, pulled at it. His fingers traced over every line of webbing searching for it.
Nothing.
Clean as a whistle.
Just when he thought things couldn’t get weirder.
Tony raised the mask in the air with a smile that wasn’t genuine. “Think you’re missing something, Parker —”
The words fell flat on his lips, suspended mid-word.
“Oh.”
Tony could feel his throat close, a steel knife fastening between his windpipe.
Looking to where Peter stood, his spine stiffened, and his arms fell to his side.
“Oh, kid...”
He looked down at the mask again, as if in disbelief, as to to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
There was no contamination in his hands. None on the mask.
Tony forced down a gulp as he looked back up, realizing there was no false reality for him to break through. What he saw was real, no denial that could trick him otherwise.
Unspeakable, absolute terror rippled through his veins as he watched tendrils of mire crawl along Peter’s face. The substance dripped down like thick oil, drenching into his hair with spasms and convulsions. Life that existed without a heartbeat. Only sections of his skin were visible, patches of white barely seen through the foul toxin spread across his body.
And Peter stared at him, exposed. Brown pupils were no more, irises gone. The whites stolen by consuming blackness.
Black eyes.
Without realizing it, without so much a second thought, Tony’s knee slid rearward into the mud beneath him. He crawled back, one inch at a time.
“Tony, we need to get him out of here!” Steve’s voice stressed what was already known, containing a pitch of importance that should have broke through Tony’s stupor.
Perhaps, if it weren’t for that shock, the daze that paralyzed his tendons and joints, Tony might’ve given a sarcastic response his way. ‘Thanks captain obvious,’ his brain would’ve said. ‘Tell me something I don’t know!’ he would’ve otherwise retorted.
Nothing came out. His mind fell into a clean slate, his attention seized as he stared into the endless darkness that engulfed Peter’s eyes.
"Ṣ̠͖̥̬t͎̟̤̯a̰͙̩y͙̦.͙͕̭͈̬̪̜.̯̜̦̦.̬ͅ"
Peter’s voice gargled, words embroiled with the scum that seeped out from his throat — out from his mouth, drenching his lips with sludge.
"̐̈͊ͬAͭͣ̌ͮ͒wͧ̂ͩͯ̒ãẙͩ.̓"
Slowly, Tony rose from his knees, movements so cautious it was as if he were approaching a ferocious, bloodthirsty animal.
For all he knew, that’s exactly what he was doing.
“Yo, if he’s not moving, take the shot!” Sam hollered in through his earpiece.
The flames burning through the dirt wrapped around Tony’s boots, licking up the length of his calves with each step he took forward. He paid them no mind, watching Peter through the wavy heat lines created by the refraction of the fire.
“I’m locking target now,” Clint’s statement was more of a warning, a firm heads up. “Stark, whatever you do, don’t let him move. This is our last chance!”
Something wasn’t right.
Something didn’t add up.
A gurgle resounded from Peter’s chest, caught in a rasping breath. His back hunched forward as his chest heaved with wet, hissing gasps of air.
“FRI...send it all.” Tony gulped, his throat closing tight. “Every piece of info you got. Now.”
Display after display inundated every corner of his view. They stacked upon each other, one after another.
This wasn’t what the OsCorp documents detailed. Tony’s eyes darted like loose marbles from one corner of his HUD to the next. Never landing on one spot in particular, yet soaking up the information all the same.
It wasn’t just a symbiote — symbiosis, the act of two things living together — no. Whatever this was, it wasn’t living with Peter.
It was trying to take Peter over.
Tony shook his head as his eyes raced through the loads of data thrown his way. He could leap forward, throw every move he had at Peter, blast unibeams until his suit ran dry of energy.
It’d get him absolutely nowhere.
“Tony, do you copy?” Steve forced out. “Tony!”
How long had they been fighting for? How many more hits, attacks, assaults was it going to take?
They needed different results. He needed different results.
“It’s not going to work.” Tony stopped dead in his tracks, stepping out of the flames, falling into a moment of stillness. “This isn’t going to work.”
It didn’t matter how far away Barton got, how far away the arrow was shot.
This was the definition of insanity, was it not? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting the same results?
“Tony, we have to!” Steve’s yell broke painfully in his eardrum. “This thing has completely taken over Peter!”
Scans upon scans fluttered across his HUD, glowing data projected into his vision and forcing information into his brain that only he could process all at once. It charged across, zipping along his vision, faster as his eyes moved to keep up.
Images of Peter’s brain, images of the symbiote data — techniques he could use, techniques he had already used —
None of it mattered.
Everywhere he stepped was a minefield.
“Not completely.”
He had one shot at this.
One try.
It was all or nothing.
For the second time that night, parts that were sealed shut and tight around his frame cracked open, freeing him from the inside.
His suit, rigidly locked around him, opened all at once.
With a breath forcefully pushed out from his lungs, Tony stepped out from within, his shoes digging into the mud of the ground beneath him. The air hit like dull knives to his skin, harsh to breathe in, unkind to an already battered body.
The comm in his ear detonated with frenzied activity.
“Tony!” If Steve hadn’t sounded stressed before, he had certainly reached that point now. “Tony, what are you —!?”
Sam barely got a scoff out before, “Is he really —!?”
One one guarded step after another, Tony moved forward.
“You gotta be kidding me!” Clint admonished. “Stark, are you suicidal —?!”
He held one hand up, palm outwards, signaling trust.
“Peter…”
Trust was something a feral animal had no concept of. As Peter snarled, his nostrils flaring like a raging bull, Tony realized that.
Still, with shoulders tensed and adrenaline surging through him, he kept stepping forward. One leg after the other.
“Tony, get back in your suit. Now!” Steve wasn’t shouting anymore, his volume reaching dangerously close to a scream. “That’s an order!”
Tony grounded his teeth, careful not to step in the growing path of simmering fire that ignited dirt into small batches of flames.
“Pete, it’s me...okay?” Tony instinctively froze when a throaty growl sprouted more offshoots of curdling sludge from Peter’s torso. Each revolting branch of symbiote quivered viciously. “This doesn’t have to happen. You don’t have to fight me.”
“That’s it.” The unmistakable sound of Clint digging into his quiver almost overtook the outrage coating his tone. “Screw it, I’ve got a hard lock. I’m taking the shot.”
A cacophony of gasps laid hidden beneath the wet, soggy layer of liquid that dripped from within Peter’s mouth. His chest surged up with each intake of air that parted through the black muck coating his lips.
“Gͧͤ͗eͦ͂̉͆ͦͥ̑tͬ̅ͤ ͂̉͒̀bͤ̽ͦâ̈́ͭ͛̚c̊ͨ̋̂́̈k͑̍̐̂.͎̘̙̖̹̜̙.͈i̼͕͙̩n̗̳̱̜ ̗͇̖̖̰̹̥t̩̟̥̙̞̳̼h̩̖ẹ̳͙̱ s̝̘̼̣̠̞̳u̺̻͓̼͓i͖̬t̖̟͚̠̠͓”
He spat the words like poison. They sounded equally the same.
Tony forced another step forward, his muscles tight, anxiety plagued with blooming fear drawing into a tight wire — ready to snap.
“Uh, no,” he managed with false, casual authority. “I’m the adult, you don’t get to boss me around.”
He had one shot at this — not like earlier, not like when Peter was still very much Peter, unconsumed by the toxin that now riddled his body.
That was child’s play compared to now.
His suit stood further behind him as he walked closer to Peter. No armor to protect him. Suddenly, Tony felt immensely exposed. Not just from the air that brushed against his skin, or the rising heat from the fire below.
Peter snarled, glaring with barred teeth. His gums bled black.
“I̦͎̬͍͎’̲̩̞̗̹͖m̮̻ ̯̜̻͉̰no̱̰̻̗̦̤t̲͔̫̣̩̹̻ ͇̙̬̖̥d̼̫̘͚̙o̻̻͇̯n̰̳e ̮w̥̥̦̞̣̬̗ị̻̤̙̜͈͚t͔̙̘̖̙h̗͖͚͍̝͍ͅ y̦̹̻̘͈ͅo̠͎u.”
He had one shot at this.
All or nothing.
“We’re not fighting.” Tony insisted. He was close enough that he could feel wisps of twitching symbiote brush up against his chest. “We’re done fighting.”
“Barton!” Steve grunted before a hard pant broke into his voice, accompanying the sound of his boots pounding against the ground. “Where’s that tranq—!”
“I’m — shit —!” Panic gripped at Clint’s voice like a vice. “I had one left, I swear I had one left!”
Long, twisted and coiled branches of symbiote reached out to Tony. Roots like thorns scratched along the surface of his shirt, climbing upwards to the dips of his collarbones.
He kept still. Only his chest made movement, shuddering with the breath he didn’t let himself release.
Tony refused to look away from Peter. He stared down the hollow eyes that taunted him, threatened him.
It was like staring into the abyss. Not even the vast, bare sea of space held so much emptiness. Even as he pushed a rocket through a wormhole, Tony at least saw stars.
Looking into Peter’s eyes, there was nothing but total darkness.
Sam’s own panic began to surface. " saw you with it, man. What happened —!"
Tony responded to Steve with one swift movement. His fingers dug into his ear canal, reaching in and yanking out the small device that sat inside.
Without ever looking at it, he tossed it aside.
Lifting his chin high, just narrowly avoiding the outgrowth of symbiote that began to reach up his neck, Tony held his stance firm.
“You’re coming with me, Peter.”
His voice was pinched, worn with the emotion that clenched at his chest the same way determination submerged through his veins. The same way the symbiote began to grow upwards along his body.
Tony didn’t look away. Not as branches of symbiote crawled further up his chest, not as blackened Lichtenberg figures scattered across Peter’s face. Each vine pulsated along what little of his skin was still exposed, flesh turning gray, waxy with decay. Pupils darker than the sky above them swelled, dilating with an immensity that left no whites in his eyes.
Scorched bile dripped off his tongue as his mouth shot open.
“You don’t C̵̛̫͈̻̬̝̺͈̹O̶̢̺͞Ṇ̛̮̹͢T̶̺͞Ŗ̷̪̺̠̘̻̘ͅO̖̹͟L͕͉̰͇̦͎̗̝͟͝ͅ M҉̨͉E̵҉͍͈̰̙͚̮̹̘̱! ”
The stems of seeping erosion that wrapped around Tony squeezed tighter. They grew up towards his neck, latching onto his uncovered skin from above the collar of his shirt, biting with thorns that weren’t visible.
Tony took a deep breath in, his lungs barely filling halfway. Steeling himself for what he knew was going to hurt.
Peter lunged forward.
It came suddenly, without warning. The sound of flesh breaking apart, slicing open with the wound of implantation.
Strands of black seized and convulsed, screaming with silent shrieks of pain vocalized in the form of deteriorating matter. Toxic substance slithered away, retreating within the pale white skin it spawned from.
An arrow found itself deeply embedded in Peter’s neck.
Tony clenched his hold on the weapon, fingers shaking, his grip tightening. The metal spear sunk in further, pushing past muscle as it released the drug from within its shaft.
Had it not made contact, Tony would’ve never known. His eyes stayed locked on Peter, as frozen as his hand that held a grasp on arrow; a distraught driven clutch he didn’t dare let go of. Not even as the vines that tangled around Peter’s body began to withdraw, pulling away from Tony’s chest — pulling away from Peter entirely.
They ceased to slither, falling silent, retreating back through the pores of skin they trickled out from.
All the while, Tony watched as Peter’s face twisted into something he hoped he’d never, ever had to see again.
“I’m sorry, kid…”
His voice grew thin, pained like glass had shattered in his jaw. The ability to tamper down his emotion had been lost, gone the moment he saw the look of betrayal break through the receding sludge that had once engulfed every visible inch of Peter.
Slowly, like dark clouds that began to part after a storm, so did his eyes. The blackness crept away at the edges, melting outward, giving sight to the clean pupils surrounded by veins bloodshot against the white cornea.
There was no time to reflect on the brown irises that returned to life. By the time Tony saw Peter — really saw Peter, free of a cocoon that suffocated him —
His hand wrapped tightly around Peter’s back, finally releasing his grip on the arrow. Right as Peter’s legs fell underneath him, his eyes rolling to the back of his head, his body making a quick descent to the ground below.
“I gotcha ya,” Tony murmured, yanking out the arrowhead deeply rooted in Peter’s neck. With one hand supporting the small of his back, he tossed the weapon aside, carelessly, disregarding where it landed.
It just barely made contact with Steve’s boots.
From the corner of his eye, and as he moved his other hand to cusp the back of Peter’s head, Tony could see Steve running along the river bank. His stumbled stride quickly became a steady jog, slower as he approached the scene ahead, a halt altogether the closer he got.
He was favoring his one leg, that much Tony noticed. Just barely he avoided the dissipating flames that lined along the dirt, colors of red and orange that illuminated the dark blues of his stealth uniform.
And as he stopped and stared, Tony realized with what brief glance he gave the soldier that his once hardened, determined expression had been lifted. Punctured.
If Tony didn’t know better, he’d say the man looked troubled.
Haunted.
“Tony…” The voice that left his throat confirmed that much. Steve trailed off, his eyes looking up and down — looking Peter up and down. Wary, skeptical.
Tony wasn’t having it.
“Get the Quinjet,” he coldly demanded. Swiftly, with a hip that buckled and a back that screamed, he lifted Peter off the ground, swinging him over his shoulder with a frustrated grunt.
“We’re leaving.” He passed by Steve without so much another word, a coldness coming off him that could have put out the flames below if it were tangible.
The line of a grappling hook was just barely visible in the distance, latching onto the bottom of the bridge ahead. A speck of man came into view not long after, faster by the second.
Clint ran towards the group with hastened speed. It wasn’t until he got near Steve that he came to an unexpected stop, nearly sliding in the mud.
With one quick move, he ripped off his night vision goggles — lenses still fractured and damaged. Stunned, he took in the sight ahead.
Steve didn’t acknowledged his presence, watching only Tony as the man walked away with Peter's unconscious body slung over his shoulder.
That was fine — because Clint preoccupied himself with the ground below, bending to his knees as he picked up the weapon that laid discarded in the dirt.
He looked at Steve, all but shoving the arrow his way.
“I knew I still had one left.”
Tension on the jet was a boiling black hole. Every corner burned hot, a gravitational pull of turmoil filling each inch of space to the rim.
Only Peter was spared of it all, laying on a haphazardly arranged cot near the far end of the aircraft, eyes closed but darting wildly underneath pale, red brimmed lids.
It was where Sam worked silently on triage. An ice pack was thoughtlessly wrapped around his shoulder, keeping it in place as he worked in slow, ginger movements to hang a bag of fluids onto the nearest IV pole.
The line connected down to Peter, where the thinnest catheter had been inserted into the back of his hand. Gloves belonging to his suit had been quickly yanked away, discarded somewhere carelessly in the haste to get back to the compound. To get the hell out of the city.
Not far away and leaning firmly against the opposite wall, Natasha watched the scene unfold with lips sealed tight. One hand stayed tucked tightly against her ribs, easing the pain of a wound unseen. The other dug deep into her pocket.
Her fingers ran along the length of the webbing that lined the gloves, hidden from view. It was the only movement she made.
It was where an empty Iron Man suit stood, a shell void of any occupancy and an open face-plate to prove the fact. The man once inside now sat low to the ground, knees pressed painfully against the side of the cot, elbows resting just as hard against the bones of his thighs.
With his chin in both his hands, Tony kept a hard, concentrated stare on the boy in front of him.
He never shifted place from the poor excuse for a gurney. Not even as Steve crossed the threshold, departing from the cockpit with steps that landed heavily on the metal beneath his boots.
The slightest limp in his step had him clinging to the wall nearby, relying on the structure of the jet to keep his balance.
Steve directed his attention to Sam. “How long do you think we have until he wakes up?”
Despite knowing heavy sedation was keeping Peter out for the count, Steve found himself keeping his voice low and quiet. It was as if anything louder would break the fragility of the space around them.
The tension was more than just encompassing — it was suffocating.
Sam ran his tongue across his teeth, making a small adjustment to the IV line before looking Steve’s way.
“I’m guessing...an hour? Hour and a half?” He flicked his thumb across his nose, tilting his chin low as he looked down to the gurney. A beat passed as he adjusted the ice pack slipping down his shoulder. “Assuming we don’t get another appearance featuring the goo creature from black lagoon again.”
On the floor, Tony gritted his jaw to the bone, the sound like gravel on gravel against the hushed atmosphere surrounding them.
The jet hitched slightly, and Steve gripped the wall tighter for balance.
“Wanda thinks she can keep him under before that happens...if need be.” He spoke in a low voice, almost too quiet for even himself to hear. "Let me know the moment you think we may need to act on that.”
Sam gave a curt nod, though the hum escaping from the back of his throat said more than his words ever could.
Steve liked to think he’d gotten good at reading the thoughts and unspoken emotions of his team, and despite his frustrations to the like, now was no exception.
His gaze flitted to the floor, where Tony sat low to the ground on a stool pressed against the gurney. Stiff as board, radiating a heat that could’ve put the aircraft's jets to shame — Steve didn’t need more than common sense to know what was going through the man’s head.
He hadn’t spoken a single word since boarding the jet. Steve didn’t need him to.
He ground his teeth, pressing his palm firmly against the wall that supported him.
“Tony —”
“Don’t.”
Steve’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click.
If Tony had the ability to kill solely with his voice, Steve imagined not even the serum would save him from an untimely death.
If it were at all possible, the tension on the aircraft grew. Sam checked the IV line one more time before walking away, finding as much distance as he could on the small jet. Only Natasha remained, her position against the wall stiff and cold.
Steve’s fingers pressed on the support beam as he pushed himself forward, taking the smallest steps near Tony’s place on the floor.
“I didn’t want —”
“Rogers…” Tony stopped him short, craning his neck up with an inscrutable look written across his face. The deep grumble in his voice was nothing compared to the fractured darkness clouding his eyes.
“Not. Now.”
His stare was brief, a gaze he failed to hold more than a passing second. It was the first time he had looked away from Peter since the jet had lifted off the grounds of Queens. The first time he had dared to acknowledge anyone after the absolute disaster that was their mission.
And just like that, as quickly as his head shot up, Tony looked away.
Steve felt the first twinge of dread curl in the pit of his stomach. They had created a problem, it went without saying. It needed no acknowledgment. A whole different problem from the one that laid on the gurney ahead.
But it wasn’t a problem for now.
Still, Steve half-turned to Natasha, one hand resting firmly on his hip with fingers that dug painfully into the seam of his uniform.
Natasha’s eyes managed to make the shrug that her shoulders never did. An impressive feat of hers to convey emotion where body language otherwise wouldn’t.
She was playing Swiss on the matter — go figure. His lips pressed into a thin, grim line. The last thing he wanted was something that divided the team, a curdling fear of repeating history already lurching deep in his mind.
His eyes stared hard at Tony before he broke through every instinct that told him not to talk.
“I didn’t want to have to make that decision.”
His veracity went on deaf ears. Tony remained silent, hunched over with elbows braced against his knees, his indignation made apparent by the tense set of his shoulders.
While his eyes stayed fixated on Peter, Steve’s eyes stayed locked on him.
The jet hit another snag in the air, but this time, Steve didn’t reach to keep his balance. He swayed slightly on his feet, the rapid pounding of his heart making him fearful in a way he hadn’t been in a very long time.
They had moved far past the Accords, the near divorce that almost disunited them for good. And yet somehow, Steve felt it in his gut that this would possibly do that all over again.
“I did what I had to do.”
He gave voice to the truth that he knew the team was already dwelling on; choosing to believe the crack on the last word escaping his lips was from the rumble of the Quinjet picking up speed.
If only the aircraft breaking through the atmosphere could make such a sound, a pain so transparent that once spoken, it held a silence over them all.
With his posture rigid, Tony dug into his pant pocket, pulling out the cell phone that laid deep within. The screen lit to life, a sheen of blue highlighting the stress lines etched into his face. He never looked up from the device, not as his thumbs tapped against the touchscreen rapidly, not even at the strife that was so abundantly audible in Steve’s voice.
It was a problem, but not for now.
Shoulder’s noticeably sinking, Steve forced himself to bite his tongue. The conversation was for another time. He was smart enough not to corner Tony — not now, not ever. Not since the cold wind of Siberia had nearly ripped through what parts of them remained.
He knew better than to push his stance when the time wasn’t right.
Looking down at Peter, the youngest of them all — younger than even he had been walking into the terrain of a war zone — Steve knew now wasn’t the time.
As if reading his thoughts, Clint’s neck craned around from the cockpit. The sound of a switch flipping alongside a few buttons chiming had signaled the autopilot feature taking over.
“Wanda, why don’t you switch out shotgun with Cap?” Clint’s voice grew louder as he turned his head all the way around, directing his attention on the crew behind him. “I’d like to discuss with our fearless leader the possibility of implementing a new rule regarding personal theft among the team.”
There was very little mirth in Clint’s words, just enough lightness to ease the suffocating weight that wore so heavily on everyone.
Steve had to suppress a sigh, bearing one last apologetic look to scene in front of him. He let his shoulders raise and fall, a weariness overtaking, one that ran to the very soles of his feet.
He crossed over from the back of the jet, reluctantly but begrudgingly replacing Wanda at the passenger seat of the cockpit.
It would be a long time until he allowed the ever-consuming fatigue to take hold of his muscles. For now, he could at least have a moments rests. There was no telling what was in store for them once landing back at the compound.
To much of his surprise, after slowly and hesitantly unbuckling her seat-belt and getting up, Wanda offered him an exchange on her way out.
What the look said, Steve wasn’t sure.
Her limp was worse than Steve’s as she approached the back corner of the jet. She didn’t waste her efforts in standing; once near the others, she dropped to the floor with a resilient groan. With her legs crossed and her back hunched, she sat opposite side of Tony, the cot separating them both.
Her hair was a mess, barely pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. Streaks of ash and dirt stained her face and dried blood still dripped down from the wound across her forehead. Her exhaustion seemed nearly worse than Tony’s, though it was debatable who wore theirs the most on their sleeve.
Far against the wall, Natasha stared at the two, three if she included Peter. She inclined her head, gaze shifting from one end of the huddled bunch to the other.
“Can you —”
Cutting herself off before she could even finish, Natasha looked away. Her throat visibly bounced as she swallowed down the words she wanted to speak.
Wanda hesitated. Though part of her looked as if she had no interest in entertaining the other woman’s thoughts, her curiosity ultimately prevailed.
Tired and beaten down, she tilted and craned her head at an odd angel, looking to the older woman in query.
“Can I what?” Her accent almost seemed thicker in her exhaustion, the exertion both physical and emotional.
Through gritted teeth and a discomfort nearly palpable to the others, Natasha directed her eyes on Peter, not even acknowledging the young girl she spoke to.
“You can get into people’s heads, right?”
Wanda didn’t answer. But she also didn’t look away.
“Tony said this thing is affecting his brain now. Are you able...” Natasha hedged, ducking her head where no one could see her face. Her expression found itself in the shadows of the corner she stood in. “Can you see if he’s still in there? If it’s taken over completely?”
Her voice was calm as ever, stoic as could be. Had Wanda not been looking at her, she would’ve assumed the former assassin was all business. As if she cared little to none about the human being they spoke about.
Yet Wanda saw differently. Natasha’s hand continued to fiddle in her pocket, just barely showing a hint of red that peaked through the black of her leather suit.
“I will not violate his privacy,” Wanda sharply replied, harboring just a touch of vitriol. “Just as you would not want yours to be violated.”
The scrutinizing gaze that fell on Natasha’s face was cold enough to freeze the Hudson River they flew over. Her anger was misguided, as was everyone else’s. Both women were pretty sure they heard Tony let out an indignant scoff at the statement, but Wanda was too tired to question it, and Natasha didn’t seem bothered.
The tension they harbored was a fire, but like any flame, it was set to die out soon. Wanda could feel that friction begin to taper off, the fear of reality finding its place between them instead.
“Besides…” her voice broke through, a deep breath too controlled to be a cry, but nearly on the edge. Wanda’s gaze was distant, troubled, drifting somewhere far away. “It has not won yet.”
The skin around her eyes tightened, her brow furrowing with thoughts tucked deep inside her head.
Natasha regarded her with lips tight and her brow creased.
“He is still in control.” Wanda’s throat swallowed, spasming as the muscles worked to rid the tightness that was so obviously there, visible to those around her and within her voice. “I can feel it.”
This time, Tony’s scoff couldn’t be ignored. His eyes had finally come up from the screen of his phone, his brow scrunched up in frustrated frown.
“So glad we’re relying on your 1970’s Woodstock hippy intuition to determine the neurological damages done by a biological sentient poison,” Tony bit back. His hand gripped his phone tightly, to the point his knuckles grew white. “Remind me to have you diagnose me when my chakras are misaligned on the night of a full moon. Though I’d prefer you to not make a bigger mess of a situation that didn’t require your involvement, Maximoff.”
Wanda barely graced him with her gaze, her jadedness nearly as crushing as Tony’s turmoil. The road rash and smears of dirt that spread across her face spoke of the weariness that stripped her desire to argue.
Feeling that same depletion down to his bones, Tony didn’t put up a fight. Both were too worn down to throw words, and it showed.
As Sam had done before her, Natasha turned to leave. Her eyes wandered just slightly, her gaze shifting downwards before she departed, turning an already small, huddled group into something more personal. A corner originally carved out for many suddenly became spacious with only a few occupying.
Tony’s frown deepened, leaving dark grooves in his brow. Without looking up, he took a deep breath in, heaving the artificial air of the Quinjet. Suddenly desperate to control the raw anger that boiled beneath the surface of his skin. His eyes shut tight as a breath passed through him, and as it did, he turned his attention back to Wanda.
“I need you to make a call,” he said, without preamble.
Wanda blinked, befuddled. Her eyebrows knitted close together in a way that darkened the ash staining her skin. His abrupt request didn’t register with her at first.
“Why me?” When he didn’t answer, Wanda pointed rather directly to the device held tightly in his grip. The StarkPhone was still lit to life, blue screen brighter than anything else around them. “You have your phone. You have not put it down once.”
Tony ground his teeth, expression tight, his lips sealed shut. It was only with his eyes that he finally provided an answer, a look that didn’t reach to his face — didn’t match the tension that riddled his body.
It was only through his dark brown irises did Wanda understand.
“Oh.”
The word fell flat on her tongue, nearly swallowed hole by the rumble of the Quinjet. Barely a whisper, scarcely a breath.
She looked down at her hands, focusing on the dirt beneath her fingernails, suddenly finding the vulnerability within the billionaires exposed eyes to be a sight that she wasn’t suitable for seeing.
“I am not sure…” Goosebumps littered her arm as Wanda managed a small nod. “I will try and make contact with him.”
For half a breath, a fleeting second too short, Tony fell still. It was in that moment a look flashed across his eyes, so vivid and sharp that not even the dim lights of the jet could have skewed them from view.
Only Wanda would recognize it as fear. Not even Tony would allow himself the right to discern that.
His jaw slowly unclenched, as did his fist. Yet his eyes never wavered from Peter, his anger seemingly draining with each passing second the Quinjet tore through the clouds of the sky.
With vocals tense and rattling, barely escaping clenched teeth held shut by a locked jaw, Tony let loose two words.
“Please do."
He let his phone rest on the precarious balance of his knee, too troubled to look at the screen anymore.
Too preoccupied with the sight in front of him.
Wondering why it was that no matter how hard he searched, there wasn’t a speck of sentient poison that tarnished even the smallest bit of Peter’s skin. Confused to how mere minutes ago, it poured out of the kid like blood escaping a hole in his body. Leaving a gaping wound that Tony could feel echoed in his own chest.
Whatever was happening, whatever was going on...it was bigger than all of them. In ways he wasn’t sure they could’ve ever anticipated.
Tony could only hope there was still time to prepare for the worse.