Chapter Text
President calling
Peter answers his phone. “Think it’s time we change these code names? They’re probably obvious by now.”
The caller chuckles, “Mayhaps! You got a plan for this?”
“Mostly. Don’t worry, I got it.”
“Good. I’ll be home tonight. I can’t wait for you to try out that bio-electricity gimmick.”
Peter smiles to himself. “It’s the most awesome thing ever. And it’s gonna be mine. See you soon.”
“Tonight, sweetie.”
“Nat!”
Nat bolts for the switchboard she’d seen at the entrance of the lab. Ben is just as fast, running at her, but Sam tackles him, letting his wings lift him off the ground to deliver a kick to the head.
With a twist, Ben barely dodges the blow, and Sam’s night vision goggles are the only thing that warns him when Ben goes for a right hook. He slips past the throw of his fist, feeling the air trembling around as he ducks down and rears his legs to slam them into Ben’s knees.
It’s a terrible blow. Sam grunts because it feels like he’s kicking a concrete pillar.
Ben’s enhanced.
Sam tries to yell this out to Nat, but Ben grabs him by the neck, ready to slam his head into the ground. Nat’s widow-bites hit Ben’s spine and the electricity stuns him for a brief moment, long enough for Sam to spin out and put some distance between them.
“Get Bucky!” Nat snarls as she launches from one of the tables, wrapping her thighs around a disoriented Ben’s neck to twist them and cut off his oxygen.
Sam slides across the floor on his shins to reach Bucky who was trying to sit up. His fist was still clutching the fake gizmo and Sam’s sensors indicated that it was constantly sending high volts through Bucky’s arm. The Vibranium metal was the only reason how he wasn’t knocked out or worse.
Ripping out a plastic keyboard from one of the computer’s, Sam strikes it against Bucky’s straining wrist, dislodging the gizmo and freeing the sergeant momentarily.
“Buck! Get Shuri on the comms,” Sam hissed before taking off to help Nat.
Ben was unwilling to yield. He grabbed one of Nat’s arms and flipped his entire body to the side, trying to slam her into the wall. Nat leaped off of his shoulder, still trying to strike his neck. Her eyes widened when Sam came up on Ben’s other side and she retreated in a single leap.
Sam unleashed his metal wings, spinning around to let one of them slice into his body. The sharp edges left a searing open wound in Ben’s torse, but that didn’t slow him down. His eyes flashed, zeroing in on Sam who aimed for his legs now.
.
Across the room, Bucky winces as he hauls himself onto his shaking feet. He can still taste lemons in his mouth.
“Shuri,” Bucky rasps, eyeing the room for anywhere the real gizmo could be hidden. “Parker’s enhanced.”
“WHAT?” Shuri and Ned yelled.
“It’s… he’s as strong as…” Bucky trails off, feeling his eyes burn. They have enough evidence. Steve went “missing”. His body was never recovered. Nat’s camera footage shows him sustaining mortal injuries. The Parkers have the PRIME machine, capable of transferring above-human capabilities and powers. Ben was previously human.
Maybe that’s what really happened to Pepper Potts and May Parker. One of the last people on the planet who had a controlled power of Extremis was Potts. Stark had issued a 24/7 security detail for years. Nobody could touch her. He’d spent more to keep her safe than what he paid for damages Iron Man ever racked up in his entire career. And even after all that, she went missing nearly 5 years ago.
And then May Parker fell off the map.
Could she have been the trial run for the PRIME machine? Could it have failed horribly and killed both women?
Nevertheless, Ben Parker is clearly the first survivor to test the PRIME’s capabilities. Petey Parker only gained more powers long after Steve was declared KIA.
Had it not been for Bucky, Steve would never have been at the airport to begin with.
Bucky howls, grief ripping through him like he’s made of tissue. He slams his shaking fist into the control panel, tears out the motherboard and frisbees it into the glass chamber of the PRIME machine. The board breaks through the glass and shatters the chamber’s body.
He marches towards the machine, ready to crush it down into atoms, when he senses movement behind him.
Bucky darts to the side to avoid the string of web that latches onto the wall in front of him.
He spins around, but the Amazing Spider just yanks on the wall which crumbles under his strength. A chunk of concrete is ripped out and slams into Bucky’s back, lifting him off his feet.
Parker uses one arm to catch him by the throat and spin him around, slamming him onto the broken control panel, metal screaming under the duress.
Bucky is pinned under one fist and he stares up in disbelief and horror. Even through the mask, he can see the billionaire smirk.
“Did that feel good?” Parker whispers. “Destroying something that means the world to someone you hate?”
Bucky is losing air, but he manages to grab the closest monitor and lob it at Parker’s head, cracking it into pieces. Parker shakes it off, barely fussed. Instead, he lifts Bucky into the air, still with one hand clasped around his neck.
Lungs straining, chest wheezing, Bucky grits his teeth and uses his vibranium arm to crush Parker’s wrist. The web-shooters prevent him from causing enough damage, probably made of the same metal.
The room is spinning and Bucky can hear Sam and Nat yelling from a distance. The lights in the basement begin to fade, dark spots popping into his vision. He can almost hear Steve sob—
Someone body slams into Parker. The crushing hold on Bucky’s neck disappears and he falls to the ground in relief and pain.
“DAMMIT, MILES!” Captain Wilson roars, using his wings to zip across the basement to knock Parker back so Miles can get to his feet.
Parker growls, snatching one of the swift wings out of the air, yanking him down to break it clean in half.
“Back-up’s on the way!” Miles pants, watching the Amazing Spider break Captain America’s wings. There’s some symbolism there, he thinks.
Ben swears all the way from the other side of the basement, still dealing with Agent Romanoff, “Petey, get outta here!”
Miles pauses at the sight of his red gizmo on the floor. Sergeant Barnes catches his ankle, panting viciously. “Fake. Run.”
“Where’s the real one?!” Miles moans. He grabs the Sergeant by his arms to pull him towards the doors that Miles busted through.
“Just go!” Barnes groans. “They want you! You shouldn’t have come here—”
Parker lets out a scream, finally tearing out the other wing and sending the Captain soaring into the adjacent wall. Miles’s heart stops a beat when Wilson slumps to the ground, not moving.
Barnes snarls at Parker. He pushed Miles away and gets to his feet, swaying like the angriest of drunks. Parker approaches confidently and there’s an alarming prick at the back of Miles’s neck.
Miles sprints.
He pushes Bucky to the side and runs at Parker, summoning all his strength and energy to blast the man away.
Miles’s body screams. The sharp yellow blast is an electric shock wave that erupts out of him. Its heavy tendrils create a pressured air wave lifting everything up and away from him.
The broken PRIME machine cracks into a thousand pieces, every shard flying into the walls around them. The ground fractures, the pillars crack, and the wall in front of him is completely blown away, large chunks trapping Parker’s barely moving body beneath them.
Miles falls to his knees, gasping for breath. He feels feverish, adrenaline still burning through him. The air is metallic, his eyes peering blearily through the haze of smoke and dust raining from the flaking ceiling. His ears ring keenly as Miles looks around the basement.
Barnes is in a fetal position, hands clasped over his ears, mostly unconscious. Wilson is right beside the remnants of the PRIME machine, thankfully protected from the blast by the steady control panel. Its screens and speakers are the only other things mostly intact beside the pillars. He slowly starts to stir, but makes no motion to get up.
Ben is knocked out completely, bleeding from both ears. He was the closest. Romanoff must have used him as a shield. Miles can’t see her, but then he hears a groan from the debris and craned his neck, completely at attention.
Parker struggles to take off his mask. Most of his body is under a massive amount of concrete and twisted metal. Miles hears his lungs struggling to draw in proper air. He’s actively being crushed, definitely not acting.
Can Miles just… leave him be?
No, he’ll die.
He’s killed so many people. Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts, the mutant kids from LA, seventeen Spider-people from so many dimensions…
Miles doesn’t even have to do anything. He just has to not help Parker.
The Amazing Spider is writhing under the thousand tonnes of metal and concrete, wet gasps erupting from his mouth. The mask’s fabric is lodged tight over his face. Miles wonders if it’s nanotech gone haywire from his blast.
Then that means Miles is killing him. It’s his action that’s led to the Amazing Spider being trapped under rubble. It’s his fault that Parker can’t breathe. It’s because of Miles that Peter is dying.
Miles was just yards away when Kingpin brought his meaty fists down on that broken fragile chest.
Miles is just yards away from Peter Parker taking his last breaths.
.
.
.
He gets to his feet, legs wobbling under the pure exhaustion. In the light of the setting sun streaming from the wide windows near the ceiling, Miles grabs at the nanotech around Peter’s head and rips it away, piece by metal piece, chunk by heavy chunk.
Brown eyes slam open and Peter sucks in a merciful gulp of dusty, electric air.
They watch each other, too focused on breathing. Peter is swimming in questions and shock, Miles is just tired. His neck has a strong tingle sparking up anxiety and he backs away from Peter frantically.
But Peter stays put. He rasps, “I won’t hurt you.”
Miles’s eyebrows climb high.
Peter gives a pained chuckle. “Every single one of them was like you. Wanting to help no matter the cost.”
Swallowing, Miles whispers, “You don’t know what it means to put on the mask. It’s not this. Not what you do.”
There’s a look of sadness about Peter. “You think I don’t care? I love this world, Miles. I’d do anything to protect it.”
It takes a moment to process that. Miles grimaces and shakes his head. “That’s not love.”
Peter looks at him, disappointed. Blood is trickling from his temple into his hair.
Then he says, “KAREN, Tocsin-2-0!”
The lone standing speaker begins to blare out a claxon. It’s so high and powerful that Miles claps his hands over his ears, screaming and falling to the floor, feeling like a sword was being driven through his head. Serrated edge carving skulls would feel less painful than this.
He barely heard the shot of a bullet borrowing itself into the speaker cutting out the noise. Miles slumps on the ground, shaking and crying, and nearly misses the fact that Agent Michelle Jones is standing there, gun in her outstretched hand.
She’s panting, looking much better than all the others in the wreckage. Wisps of her hair has escaped her bun, her wrist is rubbed raw, but her eyes flash, fully alert and capable. The noise clearly didn’t hurt her, unlike Miles and even Peter who’s miraculously still awake.
Jones points the gun at Peter. “Miles, get back.”
Miles tries to move, but his body is shuddering so badly that he can barely shuffle a few paces before collapsing against a broken wall, nails scraping at the floor.
Jones approaches Parker. “Where’s the gizmo?”
Parker’s disorientation doesn’t stop him from recognizing her. A drowsy smile flits across his face, “Emjay.”
“It belongs to the kid,” Jones insists. “Where is it?”
“I missed you so much,” he whispers.
“Don’t test me!” Jones hisses. “You think I won’t shoot you?”
“I know you won’t.”
Miles watches Jones flounder for a moment, Spidey-sense pinging for him and Parker. Then she steels herself and pulls the trigger.
The bullet rips through the skull even before she shoots. Hers hits the ground beside Peter’s shoulder. Miles doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. Parker is in the same boat, smile dropping, full awareness snapping back in.
It’s a very different bullet that has found home in Jones’s head.
.
.
.
There’s a ringing in his ears.
The gun tumbles out of her limp hand.
Peter screams.
The rubble shifts and falls away, great hoards of it getting punched and kicked away.
Miles watches numbly as Peter crawls over to MJ, shrieking her name over and over again. Horror dawns over them as dusk sets in. He shakes her and she just stares at the ceiling. Their heads bleed together.
.
Maybe it is love. In his own screwed up way, it’s a terrible, corroded love.
Nat is the quietest. At least Miles mumbles yes to water and no to food. Aaron isn’t sure how to approach either of them.
Shuri is looking after Ned. Fury is handling the circus that’s descending upon them. Stark rounds up a bunch of Agents to get Sam and Bucky to the medical wing and Peter was shot with about a dozen tranquilizer darts before he falls and is restrained.
Aaron looks up when Sharon Carter approaches him and Fury.
“Searched through the building, but we couldn’t find the sniper,” she whispers. “Whoever it was, made a clean three-hundred yard shot. I’ve got personnel combing the area for tripod marks, a casing… nothing’s sprung up.”
Aaron turns away for a moment to calm himself. Fury’s cold anger is simmering. “Get the bullet. I want that son-of-a-bitch.”
“Won’t be much left once Nat gets to them first,” Sharon says grimly. “Whoever it was can’t be on Parker’s side or ours. He cared about MJ too.”
It’s hard to forget the sight of Parker clutching MJ’s cooling body, sobbing wildly and completely unhinged. Miles had been frozen as a statue, barely an arm’s length away. Either of them would have been easy pickings for the sniper, but they were left alive.
“Anything about the PRIME machine,” Fury finally asks.
Sharon frowns. “Intel suggests they ought to have more than two. But it looks like Miles destroyed them both. Can’t find any similar machinery in the mansion or any of the other known bases.”
Aaron cracks his knuckles. “Then we’re gonna have to expand the search, find some unknown bases.”
“Long term plan,” Fury agrees. “For now, we send the kid packing. The Parkers can’t get their hands on him. Especially after they’ve seen what he’s capable of.”
Aaron feels a quick shudder run down his spine. When he’d first come upon the scene, just minutes after the fatal shot, it looked like a bomb had gone off.
Later, Miles came forward and mumbled, “I let out an energy blast to knock him out.”
Bio-electricity. Aaron shakes his head and looks over to the lad, his nephew from another dimension, sipping a glass of hot water. He’s a tiny thing, blanket thrown over him, huddling over the glass, eyes wide and watery.
The child nearly destroyed half the building in a controlled explosion that killed no one.
One of the many horrid mantras of the anti-mutant legislation squads is: The only thing more dangerous than a mutant out of control is a mutant in complete control.
Aaron begs to differ. He looks at Miles, a boy who chooses to help and save and not harm anyone. He looks at a hero, a good soul.
That’s Spider-Man, Aaron understands. Their universe might have gotten a bad hand at the Spider lottery, but it almost makes up for it with Miles Morales.
Ned hands over the newly tricked out goober.
“Goober?” Miles wonders.
Ned chuckles. It’s a little forced. “It’s… it’s what MJ and I used to call random tech stuff. Like… there’s always some shiny glowy thingy around the corner, it’s hard to keep up with names, especially for the paperwork. So we just call it goober.”
Miles nods. He knows where they got that from, but doesn’t say it out loud. Peter's face is still vividly imprinted in his brain: soulless eyes staring at MJ, waiting for her wake up and breathe life back into him.
“So, this also uses your DNA,” Ned says. “But it’s a one-time thing. The saliva will disintegrate after one use.”
“Spit power,” Miles mutters, trying to smile. It feels fake. He attaches goober’s wristband right below his new web-shooters.
“I didn’t really wanna poke you for blood,” Shuri shrugs, walking into the medical wing. She’s carrying some fresh food for him.
“That smells good!” Miles says in relief, sniffing at the delicious aroma and feeling an ache in the pit of his stomach. He’s so ready to go home.
“These are experiments!” Shuri chirps. “I want you to place them out on dirt and see if the bugs and insects will eat them.”
“Say what?”
She clicks his tongue. “You know? To see if they can sense the different energy. Here’s some water too. Keep it in an open bowl outside. Check if the birds or animals drink from it. Record your observations.”
“I’ve been eating in this dimension for a few days now,” Miles reminds her.
“Yeah, but we’re people,” she dismisses him. “Creatures far closer to nature will be more attuned to nature and may sense something is off. Actually… use some of this to water your plants. See if the roots and stalks absorb it!”
Shuri gave him a to-do list to follow once he reaches home. It makes Miles that much more confident that the goober will work.
He wishes he could be excited about this. Shuri’s given him blueprints and scripts for viable multiversal teleporters, if he ever wants to build a fully functional one. This would get him to Gwen, Peter B., Peni, Noir, and Porker that much faster, but everything exists behind a veil.
Agent Romanoff stands by the window, fiddling with an old Swiss Army knife.
The pale walls illuminate her ragged form. Miles wants to say goodbye, but the stench of grief and weight rolls off of her in droves. He has no idea how close all the agents were, but the Black Widow looks like she’s just holding herself together with duct tape and a prayer.
“Don’t come back here,” she whispers.
He’s across the room but knows instantly that she is talking to him.
“Till we find other potential PRIME machines and teleporters in this world… it’s not safe,” her face breaks composure for a moment.
“I… I won’t,” Miles responds. Romanoff tilts her head toward him and nods as though she hears it.
Don’t do anything reckless, is what he wants to say to her. But he hopes her friends will remind her of that.
Miles taps the goober’s screen and watches as Shuri, Romanoff, Ned, Fury, and Uncle Aaron disappear from his sight. The world is washed away and he’s being spirited away through the inky space between dimensions, filled with a million stars and galaxies.
There are gossamer strands of light connecting the stars, and stretching out in infinite lines across the skyscape. They resemble the most beautiful webs spanning across the multiverse and Miles almost wishes he can glide his hands through the webs, feel the chaotic glow and energy.
His vision snaps back and he falls on the cold terrace of a skyscraper.
The night sky stops spinning and Miles blinks up carefully at the barely visible stars through the city’s air pollution.
The gargoyle statues and their frozen scowls remind him of his New York City. Miles hears the ever present noises of traffic, the calls of Brooklyn over subway pedestrians, and the sound of his Mami’s car as she reverses into her parking spot of their apartment, four blocks away from him.
Miles checks his web shooters. They work well, though Fury had suggested he destroy anything from their universe (save for Shuri’s packages).
“Just once,” Miles whispers, before pulling on his hoodie low and leaping off the building.
He tells his parents. They’re not as shocked as he expects. Most normal parents may have recoiled or just straight out cursed aloud when hearing that their beloved child is Spider-Man.
Mom and Dad embrace Miles.
Ben stares at the flickering light block in the ceiling.
.
The Raft clearly hasn’t been renovated in years. You’d think a prison under the ocean would need regular maintenance. The lengths of human complacency are incomparable.
It’s been four weeks since the entire fiasco. More than losing the mansion and their monies, Ben recalled how the Winter Soldier and then Miles had destroyed the smaller PRIME machine.
Yes, of course they have back-ups.
He isn’t sure where Petey is holed up. They wouldn’t kill him outright. Probably schedule dozens of tests on him every day. Parasitic scientists. Osborn would have been the first one on the list eager to dissect Peter if Ben hadn’t broken his legs as a warning years ago.
He shudders. Right now, in his prison jumpsuit and the inhibitor clamped around his neck, Ben feels the cold seeping in, reminding him of how a lack of power means absolute failure and defeat.
Petey must be feeling a hundred times worse.
The bell rings for lunch. Ben stands up and steps away from the bars mechanically. He’s gotten into the routine. Any time the doors need to open, he has to stay close to the wall with his hands on his head. They usually just push the tray of packed food through the bars and leave him be, muttering under their breaths. He hasn’t been impatient enough to push the limits. The guards seem itching to break out their electric prods.
The doors don’t open right away.
That’s different.
Ben frowns at the lock, light flickering above his head. He tries to listen outside the room, but as usual, he hears nothing.
Finally, the door beeps and hisses open. Through the last barrier of bars, he sees a mess of dead bodies, littering the space outside his cell. Lights are flashing red, papers and stray instruments and weapons are scattered over the floor.
The smell of burning flesh hits him hard. Ben gawks in complete shock, the split-second horror dissolving into something… reticent.
How else do you greet your wife?
May Parker steps primly over a decapitated limb on fire. Her dark flame proof suit does its job well and Ben just stares at her as she approaches, glancing curiously at the vertical bars.
“You seem surprised,” she hums, smiling as though they’ve bumped into each other at a grocery store.
“I thought you were dead,” he responds flatly.
She tilts her head in contemplation. “Close. Took me years to gain a semblance of control. Worked.”
Ben feels the heat searing off her suit and face. Her wrath is apparent.
“They’d have put Peter in the Negative Zone,” Ben whispers, mostly because he wants to see her explode.
May clenches her jaw. “Yes… Norman’s working on it.”
He groans. “What did you promise him?”
“Something he deserves, you don’t need to worry about that,” May promises, carefully clutching the bars with very tense fists.
“I’d like to know what you’re planning, dear.”
She makes a face. “We tried this your way. Look where it got the both of you. Now, we’re doing things my way. So, first thing’s first.”
Flames erupt in her eyes as the bars melt from the fiery heat of her hands. She smiles. “We’re gonna get our Petey back.”