Down Came The Rain
Tony knew he was ignoring the problem.
He also knew that by ignoring the problem, it wouldn’t make the problem go away — contrary to how hard he tried. But there was something incredibly blissful about sticking his head in the sand. Especially after last week, after having what he could easily call a good time with the team.
It had been months. Closer to a year — damn, was it back before Ultron that things were this good between them? They hadn’t laughed that much in a while, easily pinning back to before the Accords reared its ugly face in their lives. It was like a renewed sense of energy sparked between them, reminding him more of the days when they had just started out as the Avengers. Back when Stark Tower lit up Manhattan and his biggest worry was how he'd nail the creation of his nanotech.
Still. Tony wouldn’t deny he was prolonging the inevitable by keeping his mouth shut.
Ignorance would've been complete bliss if he'd just kept the entire thing a secret — from everyone.
“Maybe we’re overthinking it." Rhodey slowly sat down on the red leather couch, his leg braces whirring at the movement. "Who’s to say it’s really that important?”
Himself and Bruce were sitting in the lounge of the compound — Tony across from them, leaning against the metal railing that led to the floor below. The pow-wow was the last thing he wanted to do today, and with the way his arms folded tightly over his chest, he had no problem expressing that discontent.
"I wouldn't count on that." Bruce frowned as he cleaned his glasses with the hem of his shirt. “He brought me back from outer space so I could tell Tony. I…I think it’s pretty significant.”
Tony made a face and waved a dismissive hand.
“If it were that significant, he would have met me face-to-face. Taken the time to explain the damn cryptic message.” Tony stuffed his hand back underneath his armpit, crossing his arms once again. "For all we know, this is as good as a ding-dong-ditch."
While neither men could argue with the fact, it didn’t take away from the severity of the situation. At least not for them.
Tony insisted it would all be okay until — well, until it wasn't.
Rhodey wasn’t thrilled with that plan.
“What about the chameleon helmet?" Bruce looked over his shoulder and towards the stairway banister. "The one you said was stolen?”
“Yeah, I’ve got my guys on it," Tony answered, tight and succinct. "But they still haven’t latched onto a lead.”
Bruce shook his head at Tony.
“No, that's not what I mean.” Shifting on the sofa, Bruce turned to face Rhodey directly. “The helmet has replication ability, right? What if that’s what he meant by ‘nothing is what it seems.’ Someone having that type technology...there’s no way to tell who they really are, right?”
Tony pursed his lips and looked away, humming underneath his breath. It was a thought that had already crossed his mind a few times now. He just didn't allow himself to linger on it.
He didn't like that thought.
“I don’t like it,” Rhode adamantly insisted, practically plucking the thoughts right out of Tony's head. To make matters worse, he looked at Tony and wagged a finger — Tony hated when that finger wagged. “I think you need to get the others involved in this.”
Tony shot Rhodey a look — that look — before rolling his eyes.
“Ease off the gas pedal, pooh-bear,” he insisted, making his way to the couches and grabbing a seat for himself. “Give it time, let's not go dropping bombshells on everyone left and right. I'm still dealing with the aftereffects of the nuclear Parker detonation.”
Tony sat back into the sofa until the cushions nearly swallowed him whole, a muted grunt sounding the ache of his muscles. Though it'd only been a few short weeks since everything with the kid unfolded, the lingering tension left behind reminded him all too much of the Accords fallout. It was a kind of tension he could breathe in the air, the kind that made grabbing something from the kitchen a more exhausting task than it needed to be.
They were trying to work past that kind of tension. Now it felt like they were rounding back to square one.
"Doesn't seem like anyone has a problem with Peter, Tones," Rhodey mentioned, eyeing the man from the distance they sat. "You seem to be more uptight about the whole ordeal than anyone else."
Tony narrowed his eyes with his head cocked to the side. “Yeah? Well, I’m sleeping with one eye open in case Romanoff shanks me in my sleep for recruiting, in her terms, a child soldier.”
Rhodey only rolled his eyes.
“You’re overreacting,” he insisted. “The kid’s been chumming it up with everyone. Even Natasha has a soft spot for him.”
“He’s nice," Bruce nodded Tony's way. "Sweet boy, very talkative, very —”
“Nerdy?” Tony finished for him.
“Eager,” Bruce went on to say. “Once I get a chance I’d like to get him into the laboratories, run some test —”
“Poke and prod, got it.” Tony sank further into the sofa — if at all possible — and pointed ahead to the scrap piece of paper that laid on the coffee table in front of them. It nearly blended in with the frosted glass. “Let’s poke and prod this first though, shall we?”
The paper taunted him.
He had written it a thousand times now — on sticky notes, scrap paper, businesses cards — trashed no sooner than it took him to jolt it down. Sometimes he even found himself scribbling it on a dry erase board before immediately smearing it away with his bare fingers. He was a visual person, someone who needed to see something to understand it. Despite how deeply it was stuck in his mind, he continued to write it down, re-reading the message as if it would make things clearer.
It didn’t.
The words had begun to lose their meaning and morph into a sentence of nonsense. He was starting to feel like he was wasting his time and energy on it. And if it weren’t for Rhodey and Bruce — especially the latter, given that he was right in saying he'd been returned from space for all this — Tony wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
But they insisted he focused on it. While Rhodey was more curious than anything else, Bruce was the one unnerved.
After all, it wasn't an every day activity to be plucked from space all just so he could play messenger.
“Don’t forget," Rhodey started to say. "We've still got OsCorp tech on the loose.”
Bruce immediately shot his head towards Rhodey.
“Awesome Android? Wasn't that just one incident?” Bruce furrowed his brows with confusion. “Or...has there been...more I don’t know about?”
Tony shook his head.
"Nope, just the rock head." Reaching into the front blazer of his pocket, Tony pulled out his cell phone, swiping down on the touchscreen with a single finger. "But over the weekend, I had FRIDAY do some digging on good 'ol OzzyCorp."
With a hard shake directed at the empty space in front of them, he brought to life a large holographic image.
“Turns out, they’ve been working on technological dampeners for the past three years.”
The hologram spread out in the empty space of the lounge, pages among pages of detailed project data so extensive that not even Tony could keep up with it.
Bruce leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his whole body practically oozing with a sense of fascination. Any other day and Tony may tossed in a joke or two about it.
While Banner worked mainly with biochemistry experiments, and Stark Industries focused on mechanical technology, OsCorp Industries was a research corporation. And a sketchy one at that.
So, skimming through the documents, none of them weren’t surprised to see an array of under-the-table experimentation programs funded by OsCorp themselves, a handful already shut down by higher government officials.
Tony said it before and wouldn't hesitate to say it again — he wouldn’t trust OsCorp if his life depended on it.
Rhodey's hum cut right through the silence.
"Technological dampeners..." he mused aloud. “The security feed shut off the night the chameleon helmet was stolen."
Tony immediately noticed that Rhodey didn't ask the question — he made it a statement. Fitting the puzzles together no differently than Tony had.
“And," Tony raised a finger, "Times Square went dark the night before."
Bruce looked between them both — and then again, before setting his sights on Tony.
“My-mysterio?" Bruce creased his forehead with confusion. "You think it’s the crazy magician?”
Tony tapped his fingers in a drumming pattern against the armrest of the sofa, his eyes looking somewhere far beyond the holographic display in front of them. Though he couldn't see it, he could feel Rhodey's stare on him — the kind that warned him not to jump to conclusions without any proof.
Unfortunately for Rhodey, Tony already made that jump a while ago.
“He lets out this smoke. A fog, almost,” Tony explained, idly, thinking out loud more than anything else. “Times Square hasn't been dark since 2003. No way is that a coincidence. Everything that had a chip, a battery, an LED screen — the moment that fog came out, everything shut down like a bad play on Broadway."
“That — that doesn’t make any sense," Bruce insisted, the shake of his head almost hard enough to knock off his glasses. "Fog is vapor water. Tiny liquid droplets suspended in the air — there’s no way it could interfere with technology like that.”
Scientifically speaking, Tony knew Bruce was right. His fingers moved from the armrest of the couch up to his chest, tapping against his sternum and clucking his tongue in thought.
It didn't make sense, and yet...
A beat of silence passed before Tony straightened his back and snatched the scrap piece of paper off the table.
“Could be a way," Tony began to say. "Could always be a way. Never doubt science, am I right, Brucey?"
Bruce watched him pocket away the paper with a frown. "Tony —"
"Nanotech," Tony seamlessly cut in, adjusting his jacket after shoving the scrap piece of paper inside his inner pocket. “The chameleon helmet — that’s nanorobots. Every little nanoguy working on a molecular surface-bound level, nanotechnology at its finest. I even have a new suit in the works. Mark 37, pure nanites, head to toe. Haven't gotten it off the ground yet, but the goal is for nano-machines to create a second layer of artificial muscle — Iron Man armor, purely nanotech.”
Rhodey briefly rubbed at his temple before looking towards Tony.
“What’s your point, Tones?”
Tony met his gaze straight on.
"Think about it," he started. "Technological dampeners? If there’s any trace of nanites in that fog Disappear-O the Magnificent uses, even trace element of nanites — and if those nanites contain technological dampeners —”
A shrill alarm blared through the compound, stealing Tony's words right out of his mouth.
The ceiling fixtures blinked red and white, strobes that broke through the skylight above them. A sound so piercing Tony briefly found himself covering his ears.
"Jesus!" he shouted, raising an annoyed look to the ceiling. “Deactivate alarm, FRIDAY! Code 19633, chop chop!"
The alarms ceased, no sooner than Rhodey jumped up from his spot on the couch — the cushions could've been on fire and he would've reacted the same way.
It wasn't until Tony looked over at them both that he caught sight of the green tinge spreading across Bruce's neck.
“Whoa…” Rhodey stepped back, one leg at a time. The mechanical whir of his braces became the only sound between them.
"Calm yourself there, Banner..." Tony slowly sat up from the sofa — slowly sat up, his hands outward with both palms facing Bruce. "Easy, now. Just a false alarm, that's all —"
“Boss, there is an attack currently taking place in Brooklyn on Main Street Park." Tony couldn't have stared harder at the ceiling if he tried. There went that placation. "State officials have already shut down traffic on both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge due to an influx of sentient species.”
"The city? Again, really?" Tony rolled his eyes so hard he swore they almost popped out from their sockets. "Christ, we were better off staying in the tower."
Rhodey flat out ignored his indignance.
“Species?" he asked, looking up to the ceiling. "As in plural?”
“That is correct," FRIDAY didn't even hesitate upon responding. "SHIELD has been alerted and is requiring your immediate attention in this matter.”
Tony immediately pocketed away his phone, closing out the display of holograms in the process.
“Bring up visual,” he demanded.
The screen appeared within milliseconds — another holographic display, but different than the last. News footage played in front of them, with whatever live feed was being captured by the local news station. All via helicopter in the sky.
FRIDAY wasn't kidding; both bridges were shut down, an array of traffic blocked for miles past the highway.
If the hologram hadn't been so large, and crystal clear, Tony would've easily assumed there was an infestation of flying bugs surrounding the outer skirts of Brooklyn. It was like watching some twisted science fiction movie — the cheap budget ones, of course. It looked like an infestation, with swarms of flying creatures surrounding the entire area. Far more than he could keep track of.
When Tony realized what he was looking at, he wished his first assumption had been correct.
“That’s…” Bruce gaped, rising from the sofa.
The breath knocked straight out of Tony's lungs. He nodded sharply, his eyes wide in horror.
“Chitauri.”
The word was bitter on his tongue. His heart skipped a beat hearing it exit his throat.
Brooklyn was in a panic, no different than that day in Manhattan five years ago. Helicopter footage captured civilians running indoors, pushing each other aside to get away from the flying creatures. Winged creatures, Tony noted. They weren't the same as five years ago — no, this was different. Someone had done something to them.
Someone had tampered with them.
“FRIDAY, send out an urgent message to all team members." Tony was already down the stairs when he spoke again. "We need all hands on deck.”
“Yes, boss.”
Tony was ricocheting down the stairs when the thought of bugs spurred a different thought in his head.
Halfway to the Quinjet, and he sent his own message.
“...so the killing of the Czar could have some elements of payback or punishment for his responsibility for the death or banishment of thousands, but the real motivation to kill not only Nicholas Romanov but his whole family is likely found in the desire to secure the revolution —”
Peter’s head shot up from his desk before anything had happened, the hair on his arms going stick-straight.
Not a second later, a piercing beep sounded from his phone.
“Cell phones off during finals!" Ms. Warren turned from the chalkboard, a finger directed at the entire class. "I won’t tell you again.”
Multiple classmates turned and stared at Peter, who hastily reached into his backpack — dropping it twice along the way before finally getting it into his lap.
"Sorry, sorry!" Peter all but tore through his books and loose papers to grab his phone, because of course it fell to the bottom of the bag.
He silenced it. He remembered silencing it because he looked at Ned and even said 'I silenced my phone, okay? This is me telling you I silenced my phone so I remember that I silenced my phone.'
The screeching noise his phone was making disproved his own memory.
What the hell?
Ned looked his way, his eyes growing wide, right as the noise got louder. Peter retrieved his phone out from the never-ending depths of his backpack, and the piercing alarm only got worse.
'Dude, you cool?" Ned mouthed.
Peter looked back at him, shrugging so hard his arms could've fallen off.
'I don't know!' Peter mouthed right back.
Fingers slammed at the touchscreen of his phone, and then at the power button — all of which did absolutely nothing. He gave the phone a good hit on the surface of his desk, just for good measure. Did somebody hack into his phone?
Wait, was he important enough for somebody to hack into his phone?
As if on cue, a message scrolled across his screen. Peter had to move his thumbs out of the way to read it.
“This is urgent, Underoo’s. Brooklyn, Main Street Park.”
Holy crap.
Mr. Stark hacked into his phone.
Peter gawked at the device like it was a foreign object, all common sense and normal brain function exiting his body, an overload of sheer excitement replacing his every train of thought.
He was being summoned for another mission.
A mission he was called to.
By the Avengers.
To fight with the Avengers.
"Holy crap."
"Mr. Parker!" Ms. Warren was shouting now — even the rest of his class cowered at the sound. "Is there something you'd like to share with us?"
Peter had already grabbed his backpack and books underneath one arm, halfway out of his chair before he realized it. His knees were still bent, ready to make a run for it.
"Uh..." His mouth floundered like a fish out of water. "I just...uh..."
“Peter has diarrhea!” Ned shot up from his desk at a speed that put Spider-Man's webswinging to shame.
Peter looked at Ned with a glare that could kill.
"Dude!"
Flash burst into a fit of laughter, a few students around him quick to do the same. What started as chuckles became a room full of finger pointing and hysterics, all pointed Peter's way.
“Oh my god, that’s priceless!” Flash cackled hysterically, slapping his hand down on his desk repeatedly. “Parker has the poops! Oh no, better go get those squirts out, poopy Parker!”
Peter was positive his face had turned the same shade as his Spider-Man costume. He could feel the blood pumping through his cheeks.
Slowly, Ned sat back down in his chair, offering an apologetic shrug of sorts to all. All while Flash continued to howl with laughter.
Ms. Warren simply tossed a hall-pass right at Peter.
“Please return it, Mr. Parker,” she mumbled, turning back to the chalkboard without saying another word.
Peter looked back at Ned one more time, 'Seriously, dude!?' he mouthed, his eyes rolling until he saw double.
“Poopy Parker!" Flash chanted between laughs. "Poopy Parker!”
Forget this. He had better places to be.
Across the classroom and in the very back, MJ furrowed her brows.
“Jesus, Flash,” she said, her chin resting hard against the palm of her hand. “Are you six? My nephew behaves better than you, and he's a toddler.”
Peter rolled his eyes and shook his head, trying to ignore the classroom’s ridicule as he jogged out into the hallway.
“Okay, that’s enough, class! Focus!” Ms. Warren turned around to face them. “As I was saying, the revolutionaries — if they wanted their way — had to remove the Romanov lineage. Tsar Nicholas was considered an incompetent ruler, but history will teach us that Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei, even his wife Alexandra did not deserve to be killed. They were innocent, caught in the midst of trouble only because of Tsar's namesake…”
Peter’s sneakers came screeching to a halt in the middle of hallway, where he lifted an entire row of lockers with his one hand. In a swift movement, he ripped his bag from underneath, letting the lockers drop back down to the floor. His feet stumbled on the way out, pushing through the double doors to the school, tripping momentarily before he jumped over the fence and made a run for it.
The Quinjet arrived in Brooklyn with no time to spare. The hardest part was landing the aircraft somewhere that non-flying team members could escape from — the entire area was swarmed, mass-produced alien tech creating a jungle-like atmosphere in the city.
Natasha, Clint, and Wanda were already rolling out in the reinforced jeep, the tires screeching through the park and onto cement ground, where they pulled up near the Brooklyn Bridge promenade. The game-plan was discussed briefly, and quickly, on the ride over. They established what was necessary — prevent any deformed Chitarui from entering the city.
In record time, Wanda had already set up a force field. Containing the disaster from going any further than it already had.
Steve revved the engine to his motorcycle, the rumble of the straight pipes to the bike underwhelming in comparison to Hulk’s roar. Above both of them, Iron Man, War Machine, Falcon, and Vision took off in the skies.
The Chitarui heads were quick to attack.
“Anyone else having deja vu?” Tony shot his repulsor beam at the flying creature that came soaring towards him, and then two more on his left side.
“You remember the attack on New York as well as Natasha remembers Budapest." Clint pulled back on an arrow and shot it at the offending creatures.
Rhodey fired his repulsor beams, one after another. “What info have we gotten?”
“Not much.” Natasha spun to the side as she shot her glock, bullet after bullet. “Chitarui, if you hadn’t caught on yet.”
“These aren’t Chitarui,” Steve quickly bit back. "Not in the sense of what we fought five years ago.”
In the skies above, Vision flew in a straight line. The stone embedded in his head let out a single stream of energy, splitting the creatures in half. They dropped to the ground with no resistance, sparks of electricity burning the grass below.
Sam soared around him, a gun held tightly in each hand, shooting as they came into his path.
“Whatever they are, they’re creeping me out,” he muttered, stopping only to reload his guns.
“Mr. Rogers appears to be correct." Vision swooped around both Tony and Rhodey, the beam of light surrounding them. "These Chitarui are not acting on their own accord. Monitoring their behavior, they seem to be following a programmed protocol.”
Tony flew down below, his repulsor beams sputtering as he came to a stop and skidded on the ground. Panicked civilians still ran in the park, struggling to find shelter while above him, the Manhattan Bridge was evoked with honking horns.
He picked up a discarded Chitarui head, still somewhat intact after having taken a bullet from Sam. He turned it over and grimaced.
It was almost identical to the monsters that haunted his dreams, the gray plating of their skin and golden helmet locked on their head still as vivid as ever.
The only difference was — A, they were dead. There was no life behind them, nothing left but the remains of corpses disposed after the Battle of New York. And B, someone had installed mechanical wings to both sides of the skull. Reminding him distinctly of Roman empire gear. Or Thor.
What he wouldn’t give to have the God of Thunder around right now.
“They’re modified,” Tony stated, dry as a desert.
Across the way near the Manhattan Bridge, Clint scoffed as he pulled an arrow from his quiver.
“What gives that away?” His voice echoed through the comms like he was physically at Tony's side. "The flying act, or the fact they look like used parts from Radio Shack thrown together in one?"
“Yeah," Tony drawled out, tossing aside the disfigured head and lighting his engines back to life. "Gotta say, the lack of a body is a dead ringer.”
“The whole flying head thing?" Sam swirled in the air, on his back momentarily while he shot four rounds of ammo at each target. "It’s seriously creeping me out.”
Steve ripped his shield from the front of his motorcycle. The bike soared down the park with his arm extended out, and the shield knocked down a row of the Chitarui heads that fluttered about in the air.
“I don’t understand — Stark, I thought Damage Control handled this. You had your own personal clean-up crews rid the entire city of anything that was left behind.” Steve jumped off his bike and swung his shield out in front of him, creating a sound similar to bowling pins being knocked down.
"I did, thank you very much." Tony blasted away an oncoming swarm. “This wouldn’t be the first time someone got their dirty hands on alien tech.”
Steve's shield came back to him like a boomerang, and he paused once latching onto it.
“More secrets, Tony?" A deep, frustrated sigh stole the bite out of his question.
“Not a secret." Tony flew above and past him in the sky. "A situation that was taken care of — by Spider-kid, no less. Someone smuggled alien tech before. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they managed to do it again.”
Distracted by the crowd of oncoming Chitarui heads, Tony blasted one repulsor after the other, each hand working overtime in an attempt to clear his path. He hadn’t even noticed the horde that was coming from behind.
That was, until, a distinct THWIP vibrated in his eardrum.
"Oh, sh—!" Tony spun around, his repulsor beams immediately taking him into the air.
He watched, wordlessly, as a single Chitarui head whirled around in the sky. It was attached to a spider-web, hurling the Chitarui head into the ground no different than a celebratory football.
"Hey, Mr. Stark!" Spider-Man landed on the nearest light post, punching another Chitarui that attacked his right side — the kid didn't even look when he threw the punch. "Man, this is trippy!"
A horde of flying Chitarui heads dove right after Tony — Peter threw a web grenade at the bunch before they could attack.
Tony threw his head around, eyes wide beneath his helmet as he watched the sticky, white substance ball the bunch together.
“Well, speak of the devil," Tony's voice echoed through the face-plate of his helmet. He hovered his way over to the lightpost. “Thanks for showing up, kid.”
Peter's grin could practically be seen beneath his mask.
“Yeah, no problem!” Another Chitarui came after them both — Tony shot a repulsor, Peter a web. “Hey, what’s with these guys? It’s a little early for Halloween tricks, don’t you think?”
“They’re reassembled Chitarui parts,” Tony quickly explained, increasing the power to his jets as he soared higher above Peter. “Smash ‘em and trash ‘em, got it?”
Peter didn't need to be told twice. A strand of webbing shot from his wrist, attaching to the nearest and highest object he could find. With one graceful leap, he web-swung himself away.
“Easy enough!” Peter latched onto another Chitarui head, once again swinging it around in the air before letting it go. “Mr. Rhodes, batter up!”
Above him in the sky, War Machine turned around to see an incoming projectile heading his way. His repulsor beam easily blasted the alien tech into pieces.
"Peter?" Rhodey's confusion could be heard through the entire park. "Shouldn't you be in school?"
Peter was swinging another Chitarui head through the air when he answered the question.
"I was!" Webs flew in every direction he could aim for. "You think this counts for an unexcused absence?"
The only thing louder than Rhodey's confusion was the sigh that followed.
While the offending creatures were contained from going any further into the city — Wanda doing the best she could to surround the basic perimeter in her force field — it didn’t stop the conflict from turning into chaos. The once bright green grass was littered with metal pieces, piling up the more by the minute.
The once beautiful park was quickly starting to take on the appearance of a dirty landfill.
Natasha and Clint stayed stationed in the jeep, only moving it when necessary — like when Natasha put the gears in reverse and crunched over a handful of nasty flying heads. Wanda focused on keeping the force field up, only to be distracted when swarms of creatures attacked her. Her energy redirected in an effort to protect herself.
Captain America’s shield roamed the park like a boomerang, and above him, Sam and Vision worked to get the creatures out of the sky.
Rhodey and Tony were back-to-back, repulsor beams shooting out faster than they could think.
And Peter was essentially playing baseball with Hulk.
“Whoo-hoo!” he shouted, swinging another head in the air. “Fly ball!”
Hulk let out an angry roar, catching the Chitarui head with ease and squeezing it within his giant, green hands. For each one that was sent his way, he looked at Spider-Man with anticipation of another.
Peter was almost positive Hulk was enjoying this.
Steve zipped past them both on his bike before skidding to a halt. His shield came back to him just as quickly and he latched it onto the front of the Harley. From over the Manhattan Bridge and to the Brooklyn Bridge, he could see Wanda struggling to keep her force field up, the glowing red flickering before dimming out entirely.
The three were being ambushed, a need to fend off the creatures now their priority.
“We need to keep these things from entering the city,” Steve urged, revving up his motorcycle again.
“Hulk is doing a pretty good job at that!” Peter shouted, swinging multiple Chitarui heads to Hulk, where he tossed each onto the ground. He beat his chest with a roar afterward, and a somewhat sadistic grin on his face.
Natasha grunted over the comms. “They haven’t passed Anchorage Plaza yet, Clint and I will block their path there.”
Gunshots rang out from her glock before the engine of the jeep roared to life.
In the skies, the four flying Avengers were surrounded, each Chitarui head they took down being replaced by two more.
Tony and Rhodey could barely move, each still back-to-back in an effort to fend off the flying creatures. Vision soared past them all but even he couldn’t seem to contain the madness.
“These things just don’t stop coming.” Sam was pulled down to the ground, a horde attaching to his left wing and he landed with a thud, shooting at the heads frantically — gunshot after gunshot filling the air.
“I’m going to scan the skies to try and find a point of origin,” Tony announced. “FRIDAY, give me a boost.”
His engines lit and lifted him high into the air, faster than Rhodey could react. He was far above the team and the Chitarui, all within seconds. Towering over both bridges, and then some.
Seeing it from high above left a troubling feeling to settle in Tony's gut. His scanners lit online and began to roam across the entire area, but from his visual standpoint, there was no telling where the reassembled alien tech was coming from.
All Tony knew was that they had easily doubled in size since the team had arrived.
Multiple Chitarui heads latched onto both the front and back wheels of Steve’s motorcycle and he came to a crashing stop, stumbling off the bike and rolling onto the ground.
“Stark, we can’t keep holding them off! We need that location!” he hollered, standing up and grabbing his shield no sooner than his feet touched grass.
In the air, Tony shook his head, his eyes frantically reviewing his HUD.
“It doesn’t make any sense." Confusion leaked into his voice. "I’m not picking anything up — nothing, squat.”
Clint dived into the back of the jeep to re-stock his arrows, narrowly missing a gunshot that whizzed past his ear when Natasha shot an attack heading his way.
“Well, it’s not like they’re just falling from the sky.” Clint shoved the arrows into the quiver on his back. And then more after that. “Not this time, anyway.”
Peter web-slung a batch of Chitarui heads into the sky. Hulk leapt to the side to catch each one that came his way, clapping them between his hands as if they were bugs.
Which, Peter realized, in their current state they absolutely looked like big nasty bugs. He made a mental note to buy a fly swatter for May when all this was said and done.
He was about to shoot another web out when his muscles tightened in anticipation, the back of his neck buzzing like crazy.
"Wait —!" Peter instinctively turned to his right, his eyes latching onto a warehouse down the road, not even a quarter of a mile away. It sat close to the underneath of the Brooklyn Bridge, and despite the destruction that surrounded him, he focused on it with shining clarity.
Something wasn't right. The buzz in the back of his neck spoke to him louder than the roar of the Hulk.
“Gotta do a hit and run, big guy." Peter turned back to Hulk, giving a thumbs up along the way. "You’re doing great, keep smashin’!”
Hulk roared in response, attacking the Chitarui that came his way. Peter wasn't sure what that meant in Hulk-language, but he took it as a go.
Latching two webs onto the bridge, Peter hauled himself into the air — swinging past the team, the park, and the horde of creatures that flew around them.
Tony watched from high up in the skies.
"Parker," he warned. "Come back, you're going too far out from the perimeter."
"Yeah, I know, it's okay!" Peter kept swinging away, even though he swore he could feel Tony's stare on his back as he did. And damn, if it wasn't as hot as his repulsors. “Something's up, I need to check this out!"
Steve shot his head to the sky, right as he slammed his shield against an attacking swarm.
“Stand down, Queens! We need you in the field!”
Tony had other pressing matters on his mind.
“Check what out?” His HUD displayed a different array of information to him, all while in the background he could see Spider-Man swinging to the nearest warehouse building. “I’m not picking up anything on the scans — listen to Cap, get back down there!"
Peter was already long gone, landing on the rooftop of an old, beaten down building with a thud that crossed through the comms.
“It's coming from — uh...St. Anne’s, I think?” Peter quickly climbed down the building, his fingers sticking to the crumbling wood like glue. A scream from inside perked his ears up like a dog. “There’s someone in trouble. I gotta help 'em!”
Tony's mouth was in the middle of forming a fierce argument when he was smacked in the temple by a clutter of Chitarui heads.
"Son of it —!" He shot out a repulsor beam, sending them away. "Parker, are you disobeying orders!?"
Across the way on the Brooklyn Bridge, now closest to where Peter was, Natasha pressed her comm heavily into her ear.
“Tony," she started, "that warehouse is abandoned property. He needs to —”
Her voice cut out, gunshots ringing in its place.
Tony’s own repulsor blasts filled his ears as he soared back down to the park.
“Screw it, let him go," Tony shouted over the increasing noise of weapons, all discharging at rapid-fire pace. "Hell, for all we know he might be onto something. We need a refuge area and if people are retreating there, he can start up a command center. Kid’s perfect with looking out for the little guy.”
Sam’s falcon wings roared to life as he shot to the sky, a handful of creatures clinging relentlessly to his legs along the way.
“Yeah? Well, what about the not-so-little guy?" Sam kicked his legs to get the creatures off him. "Cause I could really use a hand over here!”
Within seconds an arrow latched onto his wings, a concussive blast sending the swarm of flying heads off his body.
Startled, Sam looked up and across the way at the Brooklyn Bridge. The HUD to his red goggles zoomed in on the bridge where Clint waved in his direction — smug smile and all.
“Not what I meant,” he grumbled, quickly flying away. “But it works.”
The warehouse was just half a mile away.
Peter had to crawl through the second story window to get through, avoiding the wooden panels that blocked his path — they crumbled easily when he moved them away.
The entire building was old and deteriorated; he was shocked the city hadn’t demolished it. The structure was barely standing, and judging by the way the floors crumbled under the pressure of his feet, Peter imagined it couldn't withstand simple reconstruction.
The wooden floor planks broke in two and Peter reached out for the nearest thing to keep him steady.
Yeah, this building needed a wrecking ball. Like, yesterday.
“Hello!?” he hollered, hands cupped around his mouth. “Is anyone in here!? Do you need help!?”
Peter’s shouts were met with only the echo of his voice. He scratched his head — actually only scratching the top of his Spider-Man mask — and turned around, confused.
“Karen?” he swiveled his head left and right. “You can scan things too, right? Can you scan this building, see if there's anyone inside?”
A ray of light shot out from both his eyes before she responded.
“Absolutely, Peter."
The scan was silent, but bright. A sharp blue stream of light coursed over the warehouse, from ceilings to floor. The middle ground was so unstable with falling floorboards that Peter relied on his sticky fingers to guide him along the way.
The longer it took her to answer, the more curious he became. He definitely felt something was off. That was his spider-sense, right? He hadn't figured it out yet, but he knew it well enough that when it told him there was danger, there was always danger.
So where was the danger?
“There is an apparent temperature difference on the far right corner of this building, Peter." Karen's answer had him spinning on the balls on his feet — and then grabbing the crumbling wall pillar to steady himself. "I have mapped it out on your HUD screen.”
Peter immediately made his way towards the other side of the warehouse.
“But no people?” Each step was like a baby step, tip-toeing as the wooden floor-planks all but turned to dust at the pressure of his weight. “I could have sworn I —”
Before he could say another word, and before Karen could answer him, he came face to face with the ‘apparent temperature difference’ she spoke about.
And boy, was it was a sight.
“Whoa…”
In front of him, filling the corner of the warehouse from bottom to almost the top, was a pile of Chitarui heads. All unmoving, and every single one seemingly disabled. They were blocked off by numerous pillars of wood — Peter wondered if he’d even noticed it if weren't for Karen pointing it out.
Peter pressed a finger to his ear. “Uh, guys — I mean, Avengers — uh...team?”
That felt so weird.
And so cool.
“Spit it out, son,” Steve spoke through the comms.
Peter walked a little closer to the pile, his head tilting with curious fascination.
“I think..." he drawled out. "I think I just found where they’re coming from?"
That shouldn't have been a question. Peter looked up and down the length of the large pile, the mechanics to his eyes narrowing shut. He definitely found where they were coming from.
Gunshots, repulsor beams, and roaring engines filled his ears. The fight on the other side was getting worse.
“What?” Tony asked, his repulsors sounding relentlessly. “Where? The warehouse?”
At first, Peter only nodded. Then he remembered Tony couldn't actually see him. Or at least, he never figured out for sure if Mr. Stark could see him or not. He meant to ask about that.
“Yeah…” he swallowed, hard. “There's a whole crapload of them here.”
The way his voice squeaked on 'crapload' had Peter wondering if the universe was out to get him.
“Not possible,” Natasha shouted over the blaze of weapons. “We’re on the bridge a few feet away from that building. There are no signs of Chitarui exiting from there.”
Peter gave a dramatic shrug before he remembered, again, that no one could see him.
“I don’t know how they’re getting out...but they’re definitely here.” Peter fumbled on the belt of his suit, grabbing fresh cartridges and loading them into his web-shooters. “It's okay, I’m going to contain them!”
Back in the park, Tony fought off a swarm of Chitarui heads that surrounded them all.
“Hold up, kid," his voice was stern, narrowly drowned out by his repulsors. "You need backup.”
Peter was already releasing his webs. “I got this, Mr. Stark!”
“Doesn’t matter," Tony bit back. "I’m heading your — shit!”
As if the chaos wasn’t enough, the moment Peter shot his webbing onto the enormous pile of reassembled Chitarui heads, loud explosions crackled through his comm. The havoc overwhelmed his senses, too many voices joining in all at once.
“Shit!” Clint cursed.
“When the hell did they start exploding!?” Sam shouted.
Steve rolled onto the ground, covering himself with his shield. “Wanda, do not let that force field down!”
“I am trying!” she yelled back.
Rhodey soared through the air. “Tony, it’s like fourth of July down there —”
“I see that!” Tony grunted, dodging explosions in the sky. “Vision, get everyone on the Brooklyn Bridge back into the jet! Pronto!”
In the skies, Rhodey was already letting out a stream of foam to contain the fire, the white chemicals dousing the ground like a blanket of snow. The mass amount of alien parts that surrounded them made it nearly impossible to control the damage though, and his suit only held so much extinguisher as it was.
Tony followed his lead, the repulsor beams that once shot blasts of ammo now raining down fire extinguisher to keep the flames from getting any worse. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long until either of them ran out of their supply. And the explosions continued, heat that latched onto flames and created fire bigger than the park itself.
Hulk stood over Captain America, roaring with each explosion that hit his back, protecting the smaller man with his massive body.
“Boss, scanners have acquired new findings.”
Tony couldn’t have been more annoyed. “I swear to god, FRIDAY, if you tell me what I already know —”
“There is an increasing heat signature of alarming concern originating from .06 miles away, east of the Manhattan Bridge and your current location.”
Tony soared down from the skies, only to skid back in the air the moment flames reached up for him.
“Yeah? There’s a lot of concerning heat signatures around me right now, so —”
“Boss, the heat signature is reaching dangerous atmospheric pressure. Thermal scanners are picking up signs of pure fusion weaponry detonated to explode if temperatures exceed safe levels.”
Tony froze.
The engines from his feet became the only thing keeping him stable in the air.
“Point six miles…" A crease formed between his eyebrows, highlighted by the inner workings of his helmet. "Bring it up on the HUD, now."
Within a millisecond the screen inside lit to life, a map guiding his eyes in the direction of —
“WARNING! Screwed the Pooch Protocol activated!"
Alarms went off, obnoxious red blinking in his vision, his HUD becoming a light show of warning signals.
“WARNING! Spider-suit temperature exceeding 112°F. WARNING!"
Visuals showed a blueprint outline of the Spider-Man suit, and his eyes flickered over the distress signal with overwhelming panic.
"WARNING! Screwed the Pooch Protocol activated. Suit temp—”
Tony had already taken off from the others. “Pete, you gotta retreat.”
There was a crackle in his ear as Peter's voice cut, overlapping with the others.
“What!?" Peter shouted — Clint said something over him, then Steve, then Natasha — Tony cursed as he fought to hear Peter through the chaos. "But Mr. Stark, I’m almost —”
“That’s an order, kid!" Tony shouted, loud enough for the rest of the team to shut up already. "Get out, ASAP!"
Tony didn’t need his AI to connect the dots for him. Peter was in the location of the impending explosion. If he had to take a guess, the ‘crapload’ of Chitarui he'd come across weren't the source of the invasion, but a trigger bomb. One ready to detonate, no different then the ones surrounding them.
And even if he still had fire extinguisher left in his suit — he didn't, the HUD was painstakingly reminding him that — it wouldn't be enough to tame that kind of explosion.
He was halfway out of the park when a dozen flying Chituari heads floated in his path, all detonating at the same time.
Tony was thrown back from the impact.
“Heat signature reaching critical levels. Explosion imminent.”
“Shit!" Tony fought to clear his path, his own suit growing blistering hot from the flames. "Someone needs to get to St. Ann's, now!”
“We’re surrounded up here, Tones!” Rhodey shouted back, both him and Sam struggling to stay afloat while steering clear of the explosions. Tony couldn't latch sight onto either of them — they were weaving and dodging faster than he could move his eyes.
Hulk roared in response.
Steve, all but face in the grass with Hulk covering his body, grimaced as the sound blasted into his ears.
“I’m grounded, Stark — I won’t make it!”
“Goddammit it!” Tony fought to find a path, each turn he took dazzling in flames. Even when he flew straight through it, the explosions somehow found a way to toss him ten feet back.
It was like flying through a wind storm. He had no control.
“Parker, that building is a ticking time bomb — get out!”
There was no response.
Tony clenched his jaw. “Clint, get that damn jet down here —”
“I can’t, Tony!” Clint hollered back. “Wanda’s force field is the only thing keeping these fuckers from sending the city up in flames!”
Tony growled in frustration. “Kid, get out of there, now!”
Peter still wasn't answering.
FRIDAY counted down the impending explosion.
The panic in his gut tripled, his chest tightening with fear.
“Peter, NOW!”
“I can’t — I can’t!” The cries broke through the comms, full of crackling static and panic. “I’m stuck, I — you gotta help me, Tony, I’m stuck!”
The determination flooded through him like a broken dam, and Tony flew through the exploding Chitarui faster than the Quinjet could have taken off.
“FRIDAY, boosters — now!”
The boot jets lit up, no sooner than his next shout broke through his throat.
“Maximoff, when I give you the go, you drop that field and get me through to the other side.” Tony kept his eyes narrowed on the path ahead, his body handling the twists and turns with accuracy, using the force of the explosions to his advantage.
High above in the Quinjet, standing on the open backdoor with her hands weaving bright, red energy, Wanda nodded. “Acknowledged.”
“Three…two…” Tony took another hit on his side, spinning in the air before lighting his repulsor beams and regaining control. He was almost there. A few more inches and he’d be by the other bridge.
“Now!”
The field dropped, the shimmering red disappearing within seconds.
Iron Man shot through like a flying rocket.
The warehouse exploded.
He was sent tumbling in the air, his back hitting the force field with a sickening thud, the windows of surrounding buildings shattering. Car alarms blared, broken glass rained down on the ground. Water from the Hudson River crashed in waves.
The impact was so hard his vision went dark, his body plummeting to the ground with no control over the suit. A rag doll that tumbled onto the grass. The sound was so loud his ears temporarily went deaf, the only hearing to return a shrill, high-pitched ring.
Everything went blurry.
For a moment, as Tony struggled to his knees, he thought it was his vision that couldn’t focus. Watching as his HUD flickered in and out of life, he realized his suit was struggling to recover. Internally repairing the electrical damage done.
Tony pressed his palms heavy on the ground, forcing himself to sit up, blearily looking left to right.
He wasn’t sure how long it took him to process the sight. The shock was heavy, disbelief sinking deep into his bones. Car alarms wailed chaotically, thousands of pieces of glass and steel fell down from the sky in a deadly rainfall.
And smoke and fire rushed out of the old building.
The building where Peter was.
“Status,” Tony croaked. “Status, FRIDAY.”
“You have sustained —”
“Not me, damn it!” he yelled, struggling to get off the ground. “Spider-suit. Status on the Spider-suit.”
It was the longest three seconds of his life. His mind had gone blank, his eyes were painfully wide — liquid poured within, burning as he refused to blink.
“I’m…I'm sorry, boss,” FRIDAY said rather sympathetically. “The Spider-Man suit has gone offline.”
No.
No.
Tony shot up from his knees, boosters flickering in and out of life before they remained on.
No.
He flew straight towards the burning building, ignoring the shouts from his comms, ignoring the warnings from his AI, ignoring the blistering heat that broke through the alloy metal of his suit.
Tony could feel his heart pounding in his chest, pulsating so hard it radiated in his skull.
He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.
The building hadn’t collapsed yet, but when he entered, he knew it wouldn’t be long until it did. The structure crumbled around him with pillars of old, rotten wood falling to the floor.
“Peter!?”
Tony's screams were barely heard above the blazing flames, and he had to duck to avoid part of the ceiling that came crashing down.
“Parker — answer me, damn it!”
“Warning: Suit reaching critical heat levels.”
Tony flew through the flames, the suit trapping the heat of the fire.
“PETER!”
Blisters began to bubble against his arms — he didn't care.
“Warning: Suit reaching critical heat levels. Emergency evacuation will take effect.”
"Kid!" Tony’s cries were desperate, and he was panicked — he knew it, he could feel it. He could also feel the fire heating up his suit, the metal suddenly too hot against his skin, stinging like a burn that would only get worse.
The smoke and ashes entered his lungs and he coughed heavily against it, knowing in the back of his head that the suit was failing if he couldn’t retain fresh oxygen.
He didn’t care.
“PETER!”
“Warning: Suit has reached critical heat levels. Emergency evacuation in effect.”
“Goddamn—it, no! No, override! Override for fuck’s sake!” Tony continued to search the warehouse, ignoring the heat that made him sweat buckets and heave for air. “Override code —”
“I’m sorry, boss.”
Tony never had a chance to respond, to think or to make another move. He lost control of the suit — it was a safety protocol he designed. The AI took over, flying him out of the warehouse, the heat so damaging to its construction that the HUD fought to remain online.
His engines sputtered in and out before giving away completely. The suit opened and spit him out, harshly tossing him onto the ground without a single care to what came next.
Tony fought to come to a stop, rolling and tumbling until his fingers dug deep into the dirt, creating crevices in the ground along the way.
Behind him in the park, the Chitarui heads all dropped at once, shattering on the ground.
Rhodey and Sam stayed high in the air, watching silently as it happened.
Hulk continued to shadow over Steve, the offending alien tech dropping all at once, hitting his back with force. What Steve's shield didn't protect him from, the Hulk did.
Tony never noticed.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t blink, he wasn’t even sure if he was breathing.
All he could do was stare ahead, the blazing flames dancing in the wind, sending embers to fly in the air and trickle down on the ground below.
The warehouse was consumed in flames, the air around him darkening with smoke. The blood rushed to his ears and though everyone shouted over the comms, he couldn’t register a single thing. His hearing was muffled, even the sirens in the distance a faint buzz to him.
Tony kneeled on the ground in shock, the world around him fading away, his only focus the blazing inferno in front of him. Despite the sirens in the background, and despite the shouts over the comms, he couldn’t hear anything.
Every sound was a faint, muffled hum.
Despite the crackling fire, screaming sirens, despite all the noise around him, it had become horribly quiet.
