Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Connor had a problem.

Realistically, he had several, but most of them required some kind of trained specialist to address. However, currently the most intimidating issue involved his love life, and he was pretty sure no one had a PhD in that particular subject.

No, this problem concerned the calendar. With every day that ticked by, March drew further and further to a close. That meant April was just around the corner, and with it came a milestone—he and Peter would officially have been dating for six months.

Connor didn’t have a whole lot of experience with relationships, but he did know that the concept of an anniversary was pretty traditional. They might not be married—neither of them were anywhere close to that—but the first six months as a couple seemed like an important thing to acknowledge. Besides, he might not need a reason to enjoy loving Peter, but he would happily take any excuse to do so.

“If you think any harder, your face is going to get stuck like that and smoke will come out of your ears. And then I will laugh at you.”

He sent a half-hearted glower to MJ. They were sharing the same bench on the school bus, near the back. Peter was a few rows up, playing on his phone—Connor could see his reflection in the window, between the seats.

“Tuesday after next is our six-month,” he whispered, trying to keep his voice low so his boyfriend’s super-hearing wouldn’t pick it up. “I want to do something for it, but I don't know what.”

“First of all, gross,” MJ deadpanned. “Second, you could literally make him a mud pie and he would be over the moon about it. Because he is also gross. You see the pattern?”

“I’m serious!”

“So am I. Look, it’s only a big deal if you make it one.” She arched one eyebrow at him. “What about Iron Man? Maybe he has advice.”

Connor winced. Things between he and Tony were better than ever, but it was hard to shake the “I am your boyfriend’s scary dad” vibe he sometimes still gave off. “Let’s save that as a last resort.”

They could go to dinner. Someplace nice, but not extravagant—neither of them were particularly comfortable with huge displays of money, even though Tony would happily buy out a whole restaurant for them if his protege asked. Peter was virtually always hungry, and nothing like a dinner date to make a night feel special, right?

Suddenly, Ned was shouting.

“Oh my God. We’re all gonna die!”

Connor leaned up, poking his head over the rows of seats to get a clear view. Ned had turned in his direction, but was looking out the window with wide eyes. Curiously, instinctively, he craned his neck to follow Ned’s gaze, and his stomach dropped.

Their bus was headed back to Midtown, but from its position on the Williamsburg Bridge, Manhattan was visible across the water. Directly above the city’s skyline floated a massive ring-shaped vessel, clearly not of human origin. Even from this distance, he could see the wind it had kicked up in its descent, and the turbines inside it didn’t seem to be slowing down.

“It’s a spaceship!” Ned yelled, as the students around them all turned and clamored for a look.

Through the chaos, an unmistakable thwip caught his ears, and Connor found its source just in time to watch him slip out the now-open emergency exit on the side of the school bus.

Did he just…?

“MJ, here,” he said, shoving his backpack into her lap and squeezing past her. “Hold this.”

As more and more citizens took notice of the ship above their city, traffic slowed to a crawl, and their bus came to a halt. This was very fortunate, because Connor couldn’t stick to the outside of a moving vehicle, unlike a certain idiot who had just launched himself off the bridge.

As Peter hurtled out of sight, evidently off to investigate the alien happenings, Connor leapt out of the emergency exit after him. There was a black sedan idling next to the bus, and when he hit the roof, the driver inside screamed.

“Hi,” he called out weakly, trying to offer a reassuring smile through the sunroof. “Can I borrow this?”

The driver had not been impressed with Connor’s request. Short on time and in lieu of a more convincing argument, he simply opted to use his powers, siphoning just enough energy to make them sleepy. Then he deposited them on the sidewalk and swiped their keys.

After that came the real challenge.

Peter might have failed his driver’s test, but at least he’d attempted one. When Connor moved in with the Parkers, he’d essentially had to rebuild his whole life from the ground up. After three years of living on the streets, learning how to drive wasn’t exactly high on his list of priorities.

So he wasn’t terribly surprised when his efforts ended with the sedan being lodged firmly between two parked cars, and leaving him with a mild headache. Fortunately, he’d made his way several blocks into Manhattan before crashing, and the spaceship above the city was a useful landmark to guide him—all he had to do was head toward it. 

As he broke into a run, heading west up Bleecker Street, Connor reached beneath the collar of his shirt and pulled out his necklace. It was similar to the one Tony had given him after his and Peter’s first disastrous fight against Negative, but slightly bigger. Tony had made good on his promise about multiple housing units—now Conor only needed one, instead of the necklace, bracelets, and a belt. 

Nearly everyone was sprinting away from the ship, and the crowd quickly impeded his path. After getting buffeted by one too many pedestrians, Connor leapt up onto the hood of a minivan and continued his progress, using the parked cars as stepping stones.

As he got closer, he heard sounds. A strange whizzing noise, the grunt of impact, and then—

The familiar sound of a repulsor cut through the air, and relief shot through Connor. Wherever Tony Stark was, Peter was always nearby.

He rounded the corner, and saw them.

Among the four men standing in the middle of the street, Iron Man stuck out easily. The next most eye-catching were a pair wearing dark blue robes, though one of them had an ornate red cape draped over his shoulders. The fourth man had greying hair, ragged clothes, and was currently flailing his arms at Tony.

“Where did that come from?”

“It’s nanotech, you like it?” Tony asked smugly, turning around to face him. “A little something I—”

He broke off, looking over the man’s shoulder to stare directly at Connor. But before he could say anything, the ground beneath him exploded, launching him into the air as if propelled out of a cannon. In the distance ahead of the remaining men, the culprit was just barely discernible among debris—a tall, wizened alien with a massive forehead and thin white hair. As Connor watched, he gestured and several trees rose up from the ground to hurtle toward the group like giant spears. But the shorter man waved his hands, projecting a massive orange mandala which resisted the projectiles.

As the shield held, the man in the red cape turned around and spun his fingers in a circle, saying, “Dr. Banner, if the rest of your green friend won’t be joining us...”

Their companion—Dr. Banner, presumably—yelped as an orange portal opened beneath him and he tumbled into it, disappearing from view.

As Connor continued to stare, gawking at the scene before him, Red Cape Guy spotted him as well. With a completely indifferent look, he spun his fingers again.

The ground opened up under his feet before he could realize what was happening, and he fell weightlessly through. His feet hit the ground faster than he expected, and his knees buckled, pitching him forward into green grass. A few yards away, there was a thunderous crash as the back end of a taxi slammed into the lawn as well, accompanied by Banner’s alarmed shriek.

Connor scrambled to his feet, his head spinning. After doing a quick 360, he identified their location as Washington Square Park, only a few blocks away from Bleecker Street. Before he could take in anything else, there was a loud crashing sound behind him. Connor whirled around just in time to see Tony’s red-and-gold form plow a trench into the lawn, until he came into contact with a tree and slumped against it. Banner was already rushing toward him.

“Tony! You okay? How we doing? Good? Bad?”

“Really really good,” Iron Man snarked back, as he lay in the dirt. “Really good. Do you plan on helping out?”

“I’m trying, he won’t come out!”

Suddenly, with a cry of “Hammer!” Tony lunged forward, tackling Bruce to the ground as a massive claw flew overhead. Connor was too far away to be in danger of being hit, but he recoiled nonetheless. The chain attached to it went taut, then reeled the tool back in to its owner—a massive alien with scaly skin, much larger than any of them. Without saying another word, Tony launched himself at the attacking behemoth. A brilliant orange laser erupted from his gauntlets, but the alien threw up a shield which refracted the beam in multiple directions—Connor yelped and dove out of the way of one in particular, and Banner hollered in alarm as a tree nearly fell on him.

“Come on, Hulk! What are you doing to me?” he moaned as he crawled out from underneath. Then, to Connor’s utter confusion, he began striking himself across the face. “Come out! Come out! Come out!”

Abruptly, one half of Banner’s face swelled, turned green, and a much deeper voice echoed from his throat. “NO!”

Then it was gone, and Banner twitched, then collapsed to the ground in a limp mess. 

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” he yelled incredulously at the sky.

Oh, Connor realized stupidly. Duh. The Hulk. Another Avenger.

An echoing gong caught his ear. Tony had been thrown into the ground, and the alien’s hammer was swinging toward him—

Which was when Peter, seemingly out of thin air, dropped from the sky and caught it before it could crush his mentor.

“Hey, man!” He glanced over his shoulder. “What’s up Mr. Stark?”

“Kid! Where’d you come from?”

“A field trip to— MoMA!” The last word turned into a shout as the massive alien seized him, wrapping an entire meaty fist around his torso, and hurled him bodily across the park.

That was when Connor saw red, and decided that he was done playing catch-up.

He tapped the center of the necklace. The housing unit unlocked, spilling nanotech across his chest, until it covered his torso and arms with segmented armor. Underneath, connecting the plates to each other, flexible metal fibers protected areas which needed more range of motion, such as his joints. He still felt ridiculous wearing the getup in only his T-shirt and jeans, but it was better than nothing.

Then the nanotech continued on, surrounding his head in one smooth motion to form a helmet. Its eyepieces were white and moved to match his expression, but unlike Peter’s they were perfect circles. A HUD flickered to life before him, analyzing their enemy without prompt. 

“Hello, Connor,” a synthetic voice greeted him, and he smiled a little.

“Hi, Karen.”

She still primarily existed within the Spider-Man suit, but Tony had linked Connor’s armor to Peter’s so Karen could assist them both in the field. The ever-present entity following him around had taken a little getting used to, but now he couldn’t imagine a suit without her.

Sprinting forward into battle, he threw out his hands and released a burst of blinding white energy from them.

When Negative had fatally stabbed him, he’d unlocked parts of his abilities he hadn’t known were possible. When Peter has restored him to life, his powers hadn’t reverted back to normal—they’d changed, and he wasn’t sure if that was because of his brush with death or if it had to do with Peter’s influence. Either way, he knew them to be stronger than they had ever been before.

But though the blast scorched the alien’s skin, it hardly seemed fazed, continuing to swing its hammer at Tony as he weaved through the air.

“What is this guy’s problem, Mr. Stark?” Peter yelled, yanking himself back into battle.

As Tony veered away, the alien decided to focus on a target still on the ground. Connor ducked under the hammer, rolling to his feet and firing another blast, with as much success as the first one. 

"I’d like to know that too!” he shouted.

“Uh, he’s from space, he came here to steal a necklace from a wizard!”

While the alien’s back was turned, Peter lunged—but it sensed him coming and whirled around, entrapping him in its claw-hammer and hurling him once again across the park.

“Peter!” Connor fired up a sustained blast, hoping to stall for time. Tony joined him, hitting it with a repulsor from above, and the alien threw up its shield again. With its free hand, it grabbed what remained of the taxi and hurled it at Tony. The projectile flew past, arcing high into the air—only to be caught by Peter with a web line. Heaving the debris with all his might, he pulverized the alien instantly.

Before it could recover, Connor directed an energy blast at the taxi, causing it to explode in a fireball. 

A brief lull settled on the battlefield. Tony dropped to the ground beside Connor, and gave him a look. A second later, Peter joined them. 

“Next time, suit up before coming to lend a hand, okay? I gave you that tech for a reason, Goggles," Tony chastised.

His face flamed. “A lot is going on!”

“Yeah, well—” Peter began, as if to back Tony up, but Connor shot him a look. Wisely, he decided to say nothing.

“I’ve got the armor part of it on, at least,” Connor tried lamely, knowing Tony still had a point.

“You’re missing the underlayer,” was all the Avenger said, though there was a hint of amusement in his tone.

“Yeah, I haven’t yet mastered the art of slipping into spandex.”

“It’s not spandex, it’s—”

“Tony!” Banner interrupted, sprinting toward them. He skidded to a stop a few feet away, and gestured wildly at Connor and Peter. “Introductions?”

"I'm Spider-Man," Peter said, and Connor could hear the excited tremor in his voice. Oh, wasn't Banner a Midtown alum? "Because, uh, because of the spider." He pointed to the insignia on his chest.

"Right." Tony tilted his head. "And the other one is, uh…"

Connor stared at the adults, his brain misfiring. He’d shed the identity of Animus after defeating Negative, not wanting to hold on to the name of an Inner Demon. But he also just wasn't all about the superhero life like Peter was. He wasn’t even sure he wanted a new name. 

Now he had to come up with one on the spot, and he was floundering. He manipulated life energy. Seriously, why couldn't his abilities be something easy to theme, like iron or a spider? What was he, Soul-Man?

"The...the...Soul...the Soul Sentinel?" he tried, already hating the stupid name as it slipped from his lips. God, this was embarrassing. 

Peter turned to give him an incredulous look, the eyepieces of his suit blown wide.

"Yeah, definitely not," Tony said after a moment of awkward silence. "This is Spider-Man's boyfriend, who—”

“Who really wants to know what the hell is going on! Something about a necklace and a wizard?” Connor interrupted.

Banner looked down at him, with a kind of world-weary expression Tony would wear occasionally—the my life is so fucking weird that I don’t bother questioning whatever happens to me anymore expression. It was a very specific look.

“Aliens,” he sighed loudly. “It’s aliens.”

There was very little Connor could say in response to that, other than, “Well, that I noticed.”

Banner opened his mouth, possibly to tell him to get lost, but a roar echoed throughout the park. In their squabbling, their massive extraterrestrial enemy had recovered and flung his claw hammer at them. Tony stepped in its path and caught the weapon before it could pulverize Banner, digging his heels into the grass as the alien snarled in frustration.

“Go high!” he yelled.

Peter hurled himself into the air, swinging in a large arc around the park. He unleashed a barrage of rapid-fire web strikes, successfully blinding the alien. It roared again and stumbled, clawing at its own face, as Connor threw out a cascading arc of light with his hands. The energy struck the backs of the creature’s knees, and it stumbled, unbalanced. Before it could recover, Tony delivered a rocket-powered right hook to its jaw and sent it flying back into the fountain in the center of the park.

“You two, get back!” Tony ordered. To Connor’s astonishment, he conjured himself up a familiar-looking, disc-shaped shield and hurled it. As the alien got to its feet, the shield flew across the lawn like a giant Frisbee and struck it in the face. Before it could fall to the ground, Tony hit the shield with a repulsor blast, unleashing a shockwave of orange light which slammed into the alien’s back with concussive force. A pair of blinking lights flashed in Tony’s right gauntlet, and the shield flew back to him, clipping the back of the alien’s head for good measure. 

It charged, and Tony dove forward to meet it. But just as he blocked its hammer with his shield, a red blur shot between them, startling both combatants.

“Kid, that’s the wizard!” Tony yelled, as the alien repeatedly attempt to crush him. “Get on it! Goggles, you too!”

“On it!” Without hesitation, Peter webbed after the blur. Connor hesitated, then followed.

As he reached the edge of the park, an idea occurred to him. Aiming his fists at the ground, Connor fired twin bursts of energy from his hands, and launched himself into the air. He yelled, somewhat terrified by his newfound altitude, but as he neared the ground he fired again, bounding after Peter like a deranged grasshopper. Ahead, the other alien stood atop a mobile whirlwind of bricks, carving a path up 5th Avenue—

A billboard hurtled out of nowhere and struck Peter like a gigantic flyswatter. At the same time, as Connor neared the ground, a car flew directly into his path. He slammed into it painfully and hit the pavement below, hard. The car crashed down next to him, making his ears ring as he struggled to rise to his feet.

Ow…

Ignoring the bruises and aches, Connor staggered to his feet. Across the intersection ahead of him, he could see Peter had recovered and was still swinging furiously after his target. Streetlights all around curled on their own accord, like grasping claws, until one finally snagged the wizard’s red cape. Like a ragdoll, he tumbled helplessly towards a hard landing—until two things happened.

One, Peter snagged him with a line of webbing, just moments before he could stain the ground.

Two, a pillar soft blue light materialized around the wizard, yanking him into the sky. Peter grabbed the nearest streetlight, muscles straining as he fought the pull of the tractor beam. Nearby, the telekinetic alien was watching with an air of annoyance. With a flick of its fingers, the streetlight was detached from the ground, and without a tether, Peter hurtled up into the sky after the wizard.

As Connor watched in horror, Peter’s voice flooded his ears through their shared communications channel. “Uh, Mr. Stark? I’m being beamed up!”

“Hang on kid!” Tony responded, but then his signal cut out with a burst of static. He was still fighting that behemoth.

Fear had paralyzed Connor, but as he watched Peter helplessly zoom higher and higher, the gravity of the situation suddenly pumped new vigor into him.

Peter was being abducted.

“NO!” he yelled, rocketing into the air. He landed clumsily on a rooftop near the tractor beam, and attempted to fly upward again. But just before he could be caught in the blue field, it vanished in the blink of an eye, and he tumbled back to earth.

He wrapped himself in a cocoon of light before he hit the ground, and rolled out of it in one fluid motion, turning his eyes to the sky helplessly. The spaceship was already rising away from the city—apparently, the aliens had gotten what they’d come for.

“PETER!”

Something caught his eye, and Connor’s heart leapt with desperate hope—Tony was streaking across the blue sky, arcing up after the ship.

“Give me a little juice, Friday!”

Something shimmered near Tony’s feet—and then his speed multiplied exponentially, launching him farther and faster into the atmosphere.

“Unlock 17A!”

Connor didn’t know what that was, but he hoped it was something that could catch the ship.

“Pete, you gotta let go, I’m gonna catch you.” 

“But you said save the wizard!” Connor could hardly see the ship, it was a mere dot in the sky, but he heard the strain in his stupid boyfriend’s voice. “I can’t breathe—”

Then the connection cut out, leaving only himself and Tony on the channel—had he taken off his mask?

“You’re too high up, you’re running out of air.” Tony’s calm, focused tone contrasted violently with how faint Connor felt. He couldn’t see the Iron Man suit anymore. Everyone had disappeared above the clouds.

Two terrifying heartbeats passed. Then, the comm device in his ear beeped—a third signal had rejoined their call.

“Mr. Stark, it smells like a new car in here!”

Peter sounded breathless, and otherwise okay, but Connor needed someone to tell him something. “Karen, what is happening?”

“Mr. Stark has deployed Item 17A, also known as the Iron Spider armor.”

Iron Spider. Connor knew vaguely what it was—the armor Peter had turned down after Tony invited him to join the Avengers. Peter had to be safer in that than in his normal suit, right?

“Happy trails, kid. Friday, send him home.”

Her Irish lilt briefly joined the conversation. “Yep.”

Then, abruptly, Peter yelled, “OH, COME ON—”

“Parachute deployed. Peter is returning to Earth,” Karen relayed, and the relief that crashed through Connor nearly knocked him to his knees. As it was, he did lean against the nearest car for support.

Peter was okay. He was coming back. He was okay.

“Where’s he gonna land?” The second he got ahold of him, Connor was going to give Peter the biggest hug of his life. He would let May do the scolding.

Karen did not answer.

Connor tapped the side of his helmet. “Hello?”

Static answered him. Then, faintly, he heard: “Oh my God.”

“Peter! Where are you?”

“Con, I—I got stuck.”

At those words, ice plunged through his veins, freezing him where he stood. He didn’t even dare breathe.

“I-I didn’t mean to, I just thought—Mr. Stark can’t do this alone, and the suit—and—”

Tony! He could kick Peter off. Desperate, Connor glanced at their channel, but to his dismay he only saw the two of them online. Tony was on a separate call, it seemed.

“No,” Connor whispered. “Come back. Peter. Come back right now. Please...”

There was another burst of static. 

“I shoulda stayed on the bus,” Peter said mournfully, his voice distorted as the distance between them became more pronounced. 

“Peter, no, please!”

Then Peter’s signal vanished from his HUD.

“He is out of range,” Karen said softly. “Friday is unable to contact Mr. Stark either. They are gone.”

Silently, Connor leaned against the crumpled car, and cried.

For the first time in a long time, he didn’t know what to do.

Tony was gone. Peter was gone.

He really was lost without them, wasn’t he?

After letting his hysteria reach its climax and then die down, Connor picked himself up. He could hear sirens in the distance, and reporters would already be swarming the scene. He needed to be gone when they got here.

But the only thing he could think to do was retrace his footsteps, follow the battle’s progression back to its source. Maybe he could learn something.

Fifteen minutes later he was stumbling down Bleecker Street, staring at the ground in a daze, when he heard a voice.

“—have to find Vision, and protect him. Protect the Stone. I need you to understand, okay? Okay? This is it.” Banner sounded increasingly panicked, like he was working himself up to an anxiety attack. “This is why we formed the Avengers. I need you to come back, bring in everyone, it doesn’t matter what happened between you and Tony, you—” He broke off, evidently listening to the other person reply. “No...no, Tony’s gone. The Time Stone, it got taken, and he went after it. I don’t think he’s coming back.” Another pause, and Connor rounded the corner onto Sullivan Street, where he could see Banner pacing back and forth anxiously. “No, I know we don’t leave anyone behind, but Tony can take care of himself, and he’s got backup. He knows what’s at stake. That’s why he was going to call you. The best thing we can do for him is to make sure the Mind Stone is safe.”

Connor didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but to his ears he’d heard all he needed. Someone had a plan, and right now that was more than he could say. He wanted in.

Anything to get Peter and Tony back.

“Okay. Thank you. Call me as soon as you get ahold of Vision. I’ll...figure out how to get to this compound of yours. Yeah, you too. Good luck.” Banner snapped the phone shut.

“Hey!” Connor yelled.

Banner jumped, then stared at him, blinking uncomprehendingly. “Who—you’re one of Tony’s, right?”

“The compound you mentioned,” Connor said, ignoring the question. "I know where it is."

Banner raised his eyebrows. “You do?”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t exactly known for his navigation skills, but Tony had once tried to kill him on the compound’s front lawn—that made the place hard to forget. “I can get you there. We just need a car. And you can tell me about those stones you mentioned.”

There was a part of Bruce which still remained convinced he was dreaming.

It stubbornly refused to accept the past 24 hours. The Hulk coming face to face with Thanos and being beaten by him. Thor, Loki, and Heimdall all dead, maybe Valkyrie too. Crash-landing on Earth, seeing Tony again—he looked so much older now, much more haggard than the last time they’d been face-to-face. Hearing that the Avengers had disbanded.

And now he was driving a beat-up pickup truck on the upstate highway, with some random costumed acquaintance of Tony’s who was hell-bent on learning everything about Thanos and the Infinity Stones.

Connor, as he'd introduced himself, seemed to take the information better than Bruce had expected. But it was hard to be sure what he was truly feeling at all, because he’d refused to take off his mask. After the explanation finished, they drifted into tense silence, only broken when Connor occasionally provided directions. Otherwise, he simply stared out the window, watching the outside world flash by.

This left Bruce with nothing but his own thoughts for company. Historically, that wasn’t always the best thing.

The Hulk had been completely quiet since briefly resurfacing in Washington Square Park. His silence was unnerving, as was his refusal to fight. Bruce wasn’t sure if it was a petulant act of defiance, if he felt used, or if he was sore over being bested by Thanos. Perhaps it was a combination.

His eyes flicked to the truck’s dashboard. They’d been running low on gas for the past few miles. With a sigh, he peeled off the interstate and into a rest stop, pulling into a small parking lot.

"I don't suppose you have any money, do you?" he asked. Then, as a hopeful afterthought, he added, "Or a phone?"

Connor gave him a brief look, then shook his head. "I left them in my ba—with a friend." Then he resumed staring out the window.

Right. Bruce sighed, and threw open the driver-side door, getting out. Time to do this the old-fashioned way. 

Back before Natasha Romanoff had lured him out of hiding in Kolkata, he'd obtained an eclectic collection of skills. Most of them were self-taught and all of them had been necessary to survive his multinational trips. One of these skills happened to be siphoning gas. He wouldn't have gotten very far without it.

The rest stop was sparsely populated, but there was an equipment shed around the back of the building. To his great fortune, it was unlocked. Seizing a small gas can and a tube, Bruce scurried back to the lot, trying to act as casual as was possible. 

There was a little Saturn next to his and Connor's truck. Kneeling down between the two vehicles, Bruce opened its gas port and fed the tube into the Saturn's tank. The rest of it was physics, really. Physics and probably brain damage, but he was supposed to have a healing factor, right?

He put the other end of the tube to his mouth and blew, listening for the sound of bubbles from inside the tank. Good. That meant the other end was submerged. 

He began to inhale deeply through his mouth, keeping a close eye on the tube as he did so, and exhaled out his nose. The process only took a few minutes to start—once the gas started flowing freely from the tube, he yanked it out of his mouth and threw it into the container, before any of the vile liquid could get in his mouth.

Suction would do the rest of the work. As Bruce waited, listening to the sound of gas filling up in the plastic can, he massaged his temples.

Finding Vision was only the first step. One way or another, this would end with Thanos arriving on Earth. They needed to be ready for that confrontation. 

The problem was, they weren't. Not by a long shot.

The tube started making gasping noises, and Bruce pulled it free of the Saturn. Then he moved around to the driver-side of the truck and quickly poured the stolen gas inside. Then he threw the items into the truck's bed and flung open its door.

In the adjacent seat, Connor jumped violently, startled. His helmet had disappeared, giving Bruce an unobstructed view of his face for the first time.

He’d expected a college student, some young adult with the stubbornness and stamina required to work alongside the likes of Tony Stark. But the face staring back at him had not yet had its round, youthful edges hardened by manhood—Bruce was looking at a boy, barely old enough to drive. His skin was a healthy, rich bronze and he had short dark hair which was already starting to fluff up, now that it had been freed from the helmet. Judging by the wet, red-rimmed state of his green eyes, he’d been crying while Bruce had left him alone.

"Um," he said, as Connor continued to stare at him, petrified. He didn’t want to ask, but... "How old are you?"

Silence fell between them, and for a second Bruce didn't think he would answer. "S-sixteen." He sniffed. "That was a neat trick. I watched you."

Oh, good job Bruce, he complimented himself derisively. You siphoned gas in front of a minor. Next you should teach him how to rob ATMs.

Unable to respond verbally just yet, he climbed inside the truck and turned the keys in the ignition. He put the truck in drive, and began pulling them out of the rest stop. They still had a way to go before they reached the compound.

However, he’d barely inched the truck out of the lot when Connor suddenly yelled, “STOP!”

Bruce slammed on the brakes, violently bouncing in his seat as the vehicle slammed to a halt. Adrenaline rushed through him, and it occurred to him that this was probably the first time in years he’d experienced a stress response without immediately turning into the Hulk. The sensation was bizarre.

“What? What is it?” he asked, leaning forward to peer at the sky through the windshield. There were no spaceships descending from the clouds, no angry aliens or purple genocidal warlords. “What’s happening?”

When he didn’t get an answer, Bruce glanced to his right, to ask again—but Connor was already throwing open his door. He shot out of the truck as if starting a marathon, running toward something lying on the ground several yards away. It looked like a piece of red fabric.

Relatively sure that they were safe from imminent death for the moment, Bruce shifted the truck back into park and watched Connor retrieve whatever had caught his attention. Then he turned and marched straight back, slowly climbing into his seat and buckling himself in.

“What’d you find?” Bruce asked, tentative yet curious.

Wordlessly, Connor held up his prize.

It wasn’t fabric, not really—it looked more like spandex. Another moment passed, and then Bruce recognized the mask. It was the same one that Spider-Man kid had been wearing. But how did it get here?

“He was outside the ship when it took off,” Connor said, answering the unvoiced question. “He couldn’t breathe. He must have taken the mask off, and dropped it.”

That made a little more sense. That high up in the atmosphere, where the winds were stronger, it could have traveled for miles in any direction before finally hitting the ground. It just happened to cross their path by mere chance.

Connor’s fingers tightened around the mask, and Bruce wasn’t sure whether that kind of luck was cruel or kind.

“I-I wasn’t quick enough,” he whispered, choking on the words as they bubbled up from his throat. “What if he never comes home? What if he’s gone forever, and...and...”

If Tony were here, he’d probably respond with some kind of blunt but well-meaning tough love. If Steve were here, he’d say something inspiring and hopeful. But Bruce, he really did not know what to do. He couldn’t make any promises. There was no room for probability when it came to Thanos—things were or they weren’t, and oftentimes you were helpless to stop them. But as Connor crumbled apart before his eyes, he knew he had to say something, anything, to keep him going.

What would Thor say?

“I did.” 

Silence fell briefly in the truck, as Connor stared at him. “What?”

“I-I came back,” Bruce continued, hoping he wouldn’t trip over his own words. He fidgeted in his seat, trying project out what he hoped was reassurance. “One minute the Hulk is fighting robots in Sokovia, and the next he’s taking the Quinjet for a joyride. I didn’t even know that I wasn’t on Earth anymore, until Thor found me on Sakaar, and that was a weird place. Slavers, hedonistic dictators, giant deadly celestial phenomena…” He started ticking items off with his fingers. “Then we got to Asgard and Thor’s sister tried to kill us, there was an army of zombies, I fought a wolf the size of a house, everything was on fire and the whole world ended up exploding—”

Connor’s eyes had enlarged to the size of dinner plates, and belatedly Bruce realized that this was not the sort of thing he needed to hear.

“My point,” he hurried on, “is anything is possible. I don’t know anything about...about Spider-Man—”

“Peter.”

“—about Peter, but Tony trusted him enough to watch his back. That has to be for a reason, right?”

That made Connor’s lips twitch, but he still looked doubtful. “It’s not Peter I don’t trust. It’s everything else up there with him. But he is pretty good at the superhero gig...”

Impulsively, Bruce suggested, “Tell me about him. How’d you two meet?”

He received a few blinks in response. “Really? It’s kinda a long story.”

“We still have a drive to finish, and honestly, I’m not that great with silence.”

Connor nodded, and Bruce changed gears, accelerating them out of the rest stop.

He took a little bit to get some momentum, but after warming up, the whole story spilled out as if from a bursting dam. Connor had met Peter as an Inner Demon—a transient group of Extremis-powered child soldiers. Bruce remembered Tony telling him about Extremis, though he hadn’t mentioned it could produce abilities like Connor’s. When he asked for more details, Connor tentatively explained how the Inner Demons’ master, Negative, had vastly augmented Extremis from its original form. Then he surreptitiously administered it to dozens of New York’s homeless. Those who survived, like Connor, were then molded into the Inner Demons.

This left Bruce with more questions than he’d started out with—chief among them, why had Connor been homeless? But he let the story continue, not wanting to deviate further.

Circumstance forced Connor and Peter to work together one night, and after that they slowly started to bond. He defected from Negative, allied with Tony and Peter, and started building himself a new life. He and Peter got together not long after that. However, Negative never forgot Connor’s rebellion, and eventually hunted them down. Even with Tony helping the boys, he nearly succeeded in killing all three of them. But they survived by the skin of their teeth, defeating him and the Inner Demons in the process. After that, they had enjoyed their hard-won peace...until today.

After finishing the story, Connor’s mood changed slightly. He seemed to come out of his shell a little more, and regaled Bruce with more light-hearted tales of Peter and his aunt May, their friends Ned and MJ, and even Tony. The boys were students at Midtown, Bruce’s old high school, of all places.

“Wow,” he said, as they entered the compound’s long, curved driveway. “That’s...wow. A lot.”

“I’m sure you’ve seen crazier stuff than that,” Connor remarked good-naturedly. There sounded like less tension in his voice, compared to when he’d first started talking about Peter.

“Well...yeah,” Bruce admitted, pulling the truck to a stop outside the building. He switched the vehicle off and exited, stretching his stiff back. As he did, the compound’s doors flew open.

“Bruce!” Rhodey shouted, running out to greet him. “Thank God. Pepper called me hours ago, the news is going crazy over what happened in New York, and she didn’t know how to get ahold of you—Connor? What are you doing here?”

“He was there too,” Bruce explained quickly. “We came as quickly as we could. I called Steve, he’s gonna reach out to us as soon as he finds Vision. Rhodey, listen. Tony—”

Rhodey's response was swift and decisive. “Tony will be fine. He’s got Peter with him, and those two are unstoppable together.”

He said the words with such conviction that Bruce actually believed them, for a moment—even despite what he’d seen on the Statesman.

“Yeah,” Connor agreed, approaching the two adults. “They’re idiots, but like, they’re highly competent idiots.”

The smile on his face was small and confident, but when he turned it on Bruce, his eyes conveyed a different message. Thank you.

“Right,” Rhodey said, satisfied. “In the meantime, you need to clue me in and we need to talk about the next step. Come on inside, you two.”

Peter was in space.

He was in outer space.

This was not good. No, it was amazing. No, it was terrifying.

He’d barely had time to relay his situation to Connor before the spaceship had rocketed off into parts unknown, leaving Earth far behind. Karen and Connor’s signals cut out instantly, leaving him alone in the Iron Spider armor.

Which was incredible, he’d quickly realized. A suit made entirely of nanotech, intuitively responding to his thoughts as far as he could conjure them. The HUD was a soft silver, rather than the blue-white glow of his old suit’s, and there were thousands upon thousands of web-shooter combinations hidden away in its databanks. If he wasn’t in hostile territory he’d be sorely tempted to sit back and immerse himself in everything the suit had to offer.

But he had to find the wizard. He had to get home.  

The access port he’d hidden himself away led inside the ship, through one of the spinning turbines—he’d managed to web it stuck long enough to slip past the death trap, but only barely. Now he was crawling along the ceiling of the ship’s massive, one-room interior, trying to plan his next move.

Then, a voice issued up from below, “In all the time I have served Thanos, I have never failed him.”

Peter glanced down. Directly below him was a long walkway leading to a what looked like a set of steering gimbals, surrounded by hard light constructs which might be navigational data, but the technology was so advanced he really couldn’t be sure. Further down the walkway, back toward the walk, floated the wizard helplessly.  Dozens of large, foot-long needles hovered around him, and directly in front of him stood the creepy alien with the psychic powers, the one who had thrown a billboard at him.

“If I were to reach our rendezvous on Titan with the Time Stone still attached to your vaguely irritating person,” the alien continued, his voice oozing smarminess and barely-controlled fury. “There would be…judgment.”

The eyepieces in his suit magnified the scene, allowing a closer view, and Peter saw one of the needles slip into the wizard’s cheek, much deeper than it should have been able to go.

“Give me. The Stone,” the alien hissed.

Okay, okay. Peter had to do something. He had to save the wizard. He—

A familiar whine caught his ear, and his head whipped around to look at the source. On an elevated platform, off to his left, Tony was leveling a repulsor at the wizard’s disembodied wed cloak.

“Wow, you are one seriously loyal piece of outerwear,” his mentor mused, as Peter scrambled over to him across the ceiling and lowered himself down via a webline.

“Yeah, speaking of loyalty…” he murmured, detaching from the line and dropping to the platform. As he did so, Tony’s face morphed into an almost comical expression of shock.

“What the—”

Crap. Crap. “I know what you’re gonna say,” Peter began, raising his hands placatingly. It was very important that Tony not freak out.

“You should not be here—”

“I was gonna go home—”

“—I don’t wanna hear it—”

“—but it was such a long way down, and I just thought about you on the way—”

“—and now I gotta hear it—”

“—and kinda stuck to the side of the ship!” Peter continued on. He was talking much faster than Tony, trying to get out as many words as he could before his mentor recovered from the aneurysm he seemed to be developing. “And this suit is ridiculously intuitive, by the way—”

“God damn it,” Tony muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“—so if anything, it’s kinda your fault that I’m here—” Peter’s jaw slammed shut as soon as those words left his mouth. He hadn’t meant anything bad by that, but the way Tony’s gaze snapped back to his face told him there was a line and he had, in fact, crossed it. Even the wizard’s cloak seemed to disapprove, floating behind Tony like a stern parent.

“What did you just say?” he challenged, pointing at Peter accusingly.

“I-I take that back! A-and now I'm here in space, and—"

"Yeah," Tony overrode him, stepping closer. "Right where I didn't want you to be. Where Connor doesn't want you to be. This isn't Coney Island, it's not even Negative and the Inner Demons. This is a one way ticket! You hear me? Don't pretend you thought this through."

Indignation shot through Peter—mixed with a little shame. "I did think this through!"

Tony huffed. "No, you didn't."

"I did!"

"You could not have possibly thought—"

"You can't be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there's no neighborhood!"

Silence fell as Tony faltered, staring at Peter with his mouth slightly open. The only other expression on his face was in his eyes—a mixture of exasperation and reluctant understanding.

The other unspoken argument hung in the air between them. What right did Tony have to send him away, when Pepper wanted him back just as much as Connor wanted Peter?

“Okay, that didn’t really make sense, but—”

“Crazy thing is, it did,” Tony murmured. He let out a shaky breath, then said, “Come on, we got a situation.”

With things temporarily defused, Peter joined him at the edge of the platform. Together, they glanced down at the wizard and the alien.

“See him down there? He’s in trouble, what’s your plan?” Tony asked. It was an obvious test—Peter knew he'd proven his mettle against Toomes and Negative, but if he was going to run with the big guns he needed to be more proactive than just hitting anything that tried to kill him. “Go.”

“Um...” Peter crouched, his eyes scanned the length of the room again, taking in the outer hull on either side of the alien. “Okay, okay, uh… Okay.” Then he stood up, and quirked an eyebrow at Tony. “You ever see this really old movie, Aliens?”

Blowing out the airlock—or in this case, creating one—wasn’t exactly the most original of plans, considering he’d ripped it directly from Hollywood, but Peter hadn’t actually expected it to go off without a hitch.

As Tony patched up the hole he’d blown in the side of the ship, Peter landed on the walkway and the mechanical, nano-crystalline arms—which were so fucking cool—folded into his back, he glanced at the wizard’s cloak on his right and held out a hand. “Hey! We haven’t officially met!”

Despite it not having eyes, the cloak somehow managed to regard him balefully before floating off to its master.

“Cool,” Peter said lamely, his good mood not entirely undeterred. The plan had worked.

“We gotta turn the ship around,” the wizard declared, heaving out gasps of fresh air as he rubbed his arm and shivered—even a few seconds of exposure to space must have chilled him to the bone.

“Yeah, now he wants to run,” Tony snarked, as the nanotech around his body melted back into the softly glowing housing unit on his chest. “Great plan.”

“No, I want to protect the stone,” the wizard shot back, rising to Tony’s condescension without flinching.

But the Avenger already had his back turned, and was instead examining the navigational holograms at the front of the ship. “And I want you to thank me. Now, go ahead, I’m listening.”

“For what? Nearly blasting me into space?”

Okay, so apparently the wizard had no respect for classic films. Good to know.

“Who just saved your magical ass?” Tony demanded, whirling around to face him. “Me!”

He shook his head, and said incredulously, “I seriously don’t know how you fit your head inside that helmet.”

“Admit it!” Tony was getting more and more worked up—Peter had known him long enough by now to be able to see the signs. Wisely, he kept his distance, while the wizard, unwisely, did not and continued advancing toward him. “You should have ducked out when I told you to! I tried to bench you, you refused.”

The wizard scoffed. “Unlike everyone else in your life, I don’t work for you.”

“And due to that fact we’re now in a flying donut, billions of miles from Earth, with no backup—”

“I’m backup!” Peter interjected.

Tony shut him down immediately, but without malice. "No. You’re a stowaway. The adults are talking.”

Peter huffed.

“I’m sorry, I’m confused as to the relationship here,” their red-cloaked companion said exasperatedly, glancing back and forth between them before finally settling on Tony. “Who is he, your son?”

For the first time since they’d started throwing barbs at each other, Tony did not have one to fire back. He just stared at the wizard, a muscle clenching in his jaw.

“No!” Peter answered quickly—he’d already dealt with enough rumors of Spider-Man being Iron Man’s secret long-lost heir. He stepped forward, extending a hand. “I’m Peter, by the way.”

“Doctor Strange,” Strange replied, looking somewhat mystified.

“Oh.” Peter dropped the offered limb and straightened his back, as if standing at attention. “We’re using our made-up names. I’m Spider-Man, then.”

Strange stared at him for another moment, then scoffed and turned back toward Tony.

“This ship is self-correcting its course,” he was saying, back to examining the controls. “Thing’s on autopilot.”

“Can we control it? Fly us home?” Strange asked.

Tony didn’t respond. He was pacing, his brow furrowed, and he was chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Stark!”

He stopped, blinking at the other man as if just realizing he was there. “Yeah?”

Peter could hear Strange’s teeth grinding together as he spoke. “Can you get us home?”

“Yeah, I heard you,” Tony said dismissively, and continued pacing. “Only...I’m not so sure we should.”

As that statement was digested, Peter realized what he meant by it a fraction of a second before Strange did.

“Under no circumstances can we bring the Time Stone to Thanos!” he declared loudly, scathingly. “I don’t think you quite understand—”

“What?” Tony paused again, this time marching right up to Strange and poking him in the chest. “No! It’s you who doesn’t understand that Thanos has been inside my head—for six years—since he sent an army to New York, and now he’s back! And I don’t know what to do!”

His voice rose to a shout, and Peter wanted to intervene, to tell Strange to back off, but he didn’t know if that would help anything.

But then Tony grew quieter, more desperate, but no less assertive. “So I’m not so sure if it’s a better plan to fight him on our turf, or his, but you saw what they did, what they can do. At least on his turf he’s not expecting it. So I say we take the fight to him, Doctor. Do you concur?”

Strange stared at him for several moments, mulling the words over.

Logically, Peter felt like it would be a better plan to return to Earth, where the rest of the Avengers were and where they would possibly have more time to plan a defense. But at the same time...he understood Tony’s reasoning. He couldn’t help but think of six months ago, when Negative and the Inner Demons had sprung their trap. They’d used the element of surprise to deadly effect—if it weren’t for Peter’s Hail Mary, he would have died, along with Connor and Tony. They'd be rotting at the bottom of the East River. 

Tony had spent most of that final battle helplessly watching—he could understand why now, he wouldn’t want to wait for Thanos to come to them.

“Alright, Stark,” Strange decided, reluctantly. “We go to him. But you have to understand—if it comes to saving you, or the kid, or the Time Stone, I will not hesitate to let either of you die. I can’t, because the universe depends on it.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed a little, but he clapped Strange on the arm. “Nice. Good, moral compass. We’re straight.”

Then he turned and brushed past him, approaching Peter. Looking wearier than ever, he crossed his arm over Peter’s shoulders as if knighting him with a sword. “Alright kid. You’re an Avenger now.”

As Tony left, presumably to examine more of the ship, Peter tried to reign in the giddy smile threatening to creep its way onto his face.

For better or worse, he was an Avenger.

Connor wondered if Bruce was tired of repeating the same story to everyone—who Thanos was, what he wanted, and why he was sending his forces to Earth. 

Rhodey took the news without blinking, something which awed him. He’d had his mask on in the truck, when Bruce had told him about the Infinity Stones, but beneath its surface he’d been quaking with fear. Thanos’ monstrous goals made Negative’s ambition seem like a party trick.

As much as he appreciated Bruce calming him down after he’d worked himself up over Peter’s safety, he did not want to hear anything else about Thanos unless he had to. So while Bruce filled Rhodey in inside the compound’s command center, he floated around the rest of the building restlessly.

He got as far as the kitchen and was debating on making himself some hot chocolate, when Karen’s voice buzzed in his ear. “Connor?”

He winced—she sounded more staticky than usual—and his helmet came to life, unfolding around his head. “Yeah? What’s up?”

“I believe we have a problem.” The suit’s HUD flickered concerningly. “My programming is supposed to reside with Spider-Man, but when Peter left the range of Earth’s satellites, I was forced down the only available channel—yours. However, your suit was only designed to communicate with a user-interface program, not house one entirely. My presence is beginning to cause complications.”

Pieces of the armor on Connor’s forearm sparked, making him jump. A small tuft of smoke wafted up from the tech, and his HUD went completely dark. His chestplate began to heat up, uncomfortably, as his helmet suddenly retracted, disappearing into the suit’s collarbone.

“Okay, um...” He looked around wildly, as if there was a helpful Fix The Advanced Technology button which would magically make the problem go away. He wasn’t a genius like Tony or Peter, he had no idea how to do maintenance stuff. “Yep, I definitely don’t know what to do.”

“Find Mr. Stark’s lab. There is a solution there.”

The entrance to it was near the kitchen, and Connor hurried down the steps, taking them two at a time. When he reached the lab’s door, however, he stopped. Tony normally kept it locked when he wasn’t around, and Connor didn’t know if he had authorization to enter.

“You must request Item 4C from Friday.”

“Uh…” He squinted at the electronic lock, then asked, “Friday, unlock Item 4C?”

IDENTITY REQUIRED, the lock read.

“Um...Connor Tanyard?”

ACCESS DENIED.

“Excuse me?”

Friday’s Irish lilt echoed from speakers in the ceiling. “In the event of Boss’ unexpected absence or incapacitation, only those with Alpha-level security clearance may access the lab.”

Great. Whether it was intentional or an oversight on Tony’s part, he knew he definitely didn’t have that designation. Lab time was for Peter and his mentor—Connor only ever came down here if they needed him for something. He bit his lip. Maybe Rhodey could open the door? “Okay, uh...who has Alpha-level whatever?”

“I cannot divulge that information.”

“Of course you can’t. Um...”

“Banner,” a voice said from behind him, and Connor jumped. Bruce was standing at the foot of the stairs, watching him with a curious look in his eyes.

ACCESS GRANTED, the lock read. WELCOME, STRONGEST AVENGER.

Bruce rolled his eyes, but there was a small smile on his face. Then he gestured at Connor. “After you.”

“Thanks,” Connor said quietly, shuffling into the lab. “Where’s Rhodey?”

Bruce’s face pinched. “Gen—I mean, Secretary Ross called, so he’s dealing with that. I didn’t think I should stay in the room. Steve found Vision, by the way—just in time, from the sound of it. They’ll be here soon.” Bruce shoved his hands in his pockets, looking around fondly. “Y’know, it’s my first time in this building, but...it already feels so familiar. Especially here. Reminds me of the lab back in the tower, before...before Ultron.”

Right. Connor remembered Peter telling him that the psychotic AI’s creation had been a combined effort. He wasn’t really sure what to say in response.

But Bruce, it seemed, wasn’t interested in continuing the dialogue. He crossed the lab and examined a workbench, which was strewn with papers and bits of half-constructed circuitry. “Well, some things never change. Tony still leave a mess wherever he goes.”

“Actually,” Connor said, joining him. He recognized some of the scribbles. “This is Peter’s handwriting. And Peter’s mess.”

Bruce’s eyebrows rose in surprise, and he looked at the notes with a newfound respect. “Yeah? He’s one smart kid, then.”

“Item 4C, as requested,” Friday called, drawing their attention. The pair of them turned around. A panel had opened up in the floor, and a large cylinder was rising up from beneath.

The glass case slid open, and Connor stared dumbly at its contents.

He knew Tony had called the first iteration of his suit Item 1C. He expected 4C to be an upgraded version—but inside the case, there was only a small a small square-shaped object, no bigger than a floppy disk and slightly thicker. Its perimeter was black, and the interior emitted a soft, white glow.

Slowly, Connor reached out and plucked the device from its pedestal. The cylinder sunk back into the floor.

“Initiating transfer,” Karen said, and the square briefly blinked brighter. The heat around Connor’s neck disappeared, and he deactivated his armor, quickly shedding the necklace. “Transfer complete. That is much better. Thank you.”

Now her voice was coming from the square. Connor stared at it, a little stunned, and then managed out, “You’re welcome.”

“Tony’s really upped his game,” Bruce commented. “He had one of those things on his chest. Just tapped it a little and bam, instant armor.”

Connor hummed in response, lost in thought. He drifted over to a desk chair beside the workbench, and sat down in it, his eyes still glued to the square. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see what this device would do. Tony wasn’t above extravagant gifts, but...Connor had been pretty clear about not wanting to be a superhero, hadn’t he?

Suiting up had been necessary back when Negative was trying to kill them—they’d been fighting for their lives. But now that conflict was over, and Connor left the mantle of Animus behind.

Did he really want to take up another?

“Connor?” A hand gripped his shoulder gently. Bruce had followed him, concerned. “You alright?”

“I...I don’t know.” He swallowed, and said, “I don’t know what I want.”

Bruce frowned. “What do you mean?”

In response, he indicated Tony’s workbench. “In one of those drawers behind me is a cure for Extremis. Tony made it for me after we defeated Negative. But I didn’t take it, because my powers were the reason Peter and I survived that battle. Maybe that meant they were worth keeping after all. But that doesn’t mean I want to be a superhero, or an Avenger, or anything. I don't know if I do.”

Bruce exhaled slowly, and Connor glanced up to meet his eyes. A weary kind of kinship stared back at him, and Connor realized that as the Hulk, he probably understood that more than anyone else.

“Peter’s never going to not be Spider-Man, and I love that about him even though it stresses me out sometimes,” he continued on, turning the square over and over in his hands. “But...but I...”

“You don’t know if you want the same thing,” Bruce guessed, knowingly. “And that makes you feel guilty.”

He gave a jerky nod. Bruce knelt down in front of him, so that they were at eye level. Then he let go of Connor’s shoulder and offered the hand, palm up. “May I?”

He passed the device over without argument.

“You know, I’ve tried so hard to get rid of the Hulk,” Bruce commented, examining the square curiously. “A part of me still wants him gone. Tony used to tell me he was around for a reason, and I’m still not sure I believe that. When I was in space, I didn’t want to fight Thor’s sister. I didn’t want anything to do with Asgard. But going with him was better than staying on Sakaar. And then...”

“Then?”

“There were people in danger,” was the simple reply. “The Hulk could save them, so he did. We did.”

“Just like that?”

“Yep. Just like that.”

Silence fell, and lingered for several moments as Connor mulled over those words.

“Peter and Tony have inspired me to be better,” he declared suddenly, causing Bruce to raise an eyebrow at him. “But they’re not here anymore, and without them I feel...directionless. Like I don’t know who I am or what the right decisions are.”

To his surprise, Bruce chuckled. He couldn’t tell if it was sardonic, or genuine amusement. “None of us know. We’re just good at pretending otherwise. All we can do is our best. So, if the time comes and you need to make a decision...” 

He made to give the device back, but Connor just gave it a dubious look, as if it might come to life and eat him.

“Take it,” Bruce urged, softly. “Just in case. And do your best.”

Slowly, he reached out and plucked it from the offered hand.

“Dr. Banner,” Friday interrupted. “Captain Rogers has arrived.”

“Thank God.” Bruce stood up, relief crossing over his expression. “Ready to go?”

Connor nodded, and followed him out.

On the way to the command center, Connor heard the voices before he saw who they belonged to. The first one was electronic, as if over a radio or phone—the speaker wasn’t in the room.

“Still no word from Vision?”

“Satellites lost him somewhere over Edinburgh,” was Rhodey’s short response.

“And on a stolen Quinjet with four of the world’s most wanted criminals!”

Ahead of him, Bruce froze in his tracks, throwing out a hand behind him to stop Connor as well. Undeterred, he slipped past, poking his head around the corner to peer into the room.

“You know they’re only criminals because you’ve chosen to call them that, right, sir?” Rhodey stood off to the left, and was pointing at the caller with a pen in his hand. Connor followed his gaze, and started as he took in the large hologram of a long, ovular table. There were several important-looking men sitting around it, but the only one paying attention to Rhodey was an elderly man with a mustache and receding hairline. 

“My God, Rhodes,” he said derisively, rolling his eyes. “Your talent for horseshit rivals my own.”

“If it weren’t for those Accords, Vision would have been right here!” Rhodey shot back. Evidently the situation had been heated long before Connor and Bruce had arrived.

“Is that Ross?” Connor whispered. This was the guy in charge of registering anyone with powers?

Bruce’s quiet response held a surprising amount of contempt in it. “Yes.”

Ross stood up, walking around the table, and Connor wondered how much range the hologram had. Could he move around the whole compound?

“I remember your signature on those papers, Colonel.”

Ross was taller than Rhodey, trying to stare him down, but the Avenger did not even flinch. He stepped forward to meet the Secretary halfway, the mechanical braces around his legs whirring as went.

“That’s right,” he said, crossing his arms defiantly. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve paid for that.”

There was a pause, as hostility crackled live a live wire between the two of them.

“By the way,” Ross began, a hint of a threat manifesting in his tone. “Down in the Raft, Martin Li insists you’re harboring one of his soldiers. It’s about the only thing he’s said for the past six months. Now, Stark won’t return any of my calls, but you, Colonel Rhodes...I know you’re a man of honor, and of the law. So you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you? An unregistered enhanced, a criminal, hiding in the Avengers’ own backyard?”

Connor tensed. Behind him, Bruce let out an indignant huff.

“Not a damn clue,” Rhodey replied, with zero hesitation. Then, as an afterthought: “But even if I did know something, Mr. Secretary, I’m not sure I’d tell you.”

Ross’ eyebrows rose. “You have second thoughts?”

“Not anymore.”

Something chimed overhead, and the pair glanced down the hall. On the other side of the room, opposite the hall Connor and Bruce were lurking in, a pair of doors opened. Through them, stepped five individuals.

He didn't need to be introduced—Connor recognized them all instantly. Through the blackened, battle-worn uniform, he could still see the imprint of a silver star insignia on Steve Rogers’ chest. The woman at his side, despite her short, blonde hair, was unmistakably Natasha Romanoff. Behind them, Vision was being supported upright by the Sam Wilson and Wanda Maximoff.

“Mr. Secretary.” Though he didn’t look at Ross, Steve inclined his head very slightly, and Connor was impressed by the amount of sass in that simple gesture. It was technically polite, but also entirely dismissive—he had nothing to say to the man.

Ross stared at him in open-mouthed shock. “You’ve got some nerve,” he said, approaching them. But for all his swagger, it fell flat on the rogue Avengers. "I’ll give you that.”

Natasha quirked an eyebrow at him. “You could use some of that right now.”

“The world is on fire,” Ross continued, disbelievingly. “And you think all is forgiven?”

Finally, Steve deigned to look Ross in the eye. His bearded face looked like it had been carved from stone. “I’m not looking for forgiveness, and I’m way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender. So we’re here to fight, and if you wanna stand in our way, we’ll fight you too.”

Silence fell as everyone digested those words. Then, Ross turned to Rhodey and ordered, “Arrest them.”

“All over it.” With a wave of his hand, the call ended and Ross vanished along with the other men at the table. Then, he shrugged. “Well, that’s a court martial.”

Steve’s lips twitched, but Rhodey was the one to break the ice. He stepped forward, offering a hand, which was almost immediately seized as the two embraced each other. “It’s great to see you, Cap.”

“You too, Rhodey.”

“Hey,” he added as Natasha came in for a hug. Then he stepped back, and eyed everyone. “Wow. You guys...really look like crap. Must have been a rough couple of years.”

Sam snorted. “Yeah, well, the hotels weren’t exactly five-star.”

“Uh, I think you look great!” Connor jumped as Bruce hurried past him, stepping out into the open, though he stopped several feet short of the group. He wrung his hands together, bouncing on the balls of his feet. This was the most nervous Connor had ever seen him. “Uh… Yeah, I’m back.”

Wanda gave him an awkward little wave from the back.

“Hi, Bruce,” Romanoff greeted. Then she tilted her head, eyes narrowing playfully. “Who’s your friend?”

Crap. Knowing he’d been caught, Connor slunk out from around the corner, stepping into the command center after Bruce.

“Oh, right,” Rhodey piped up, before anyone else could speak. “Remember Spider-Man, back in Germany? The red and blue guy?”

“Queens?” Rogers asked, looking surprised. “Younger than I thought you’d be.”

“You shot me full of webs,” Sam accused, but when Connor paled, he tried to backtrack. “Wait, no, it’s okay—”

“Spider-Man is my boyfriend!” he blurted out. “I’m, uh...I’m Connor.”

“Oh.” Sam exchanged a look with Vision, who seemed to be watching the whole exchange very calmly for someone with multiple stab wounds to his torso. “This is awkward.”

After Wanda stabilized Vision a little more with her powers, everyone retired to the lounge area. It was a seldom-used room in the compound, with an open floor with a little kitchen in one corner, opposite a group of several armchairs. Between the two was a small dining table. Connor scurried over to one of the armchairs, not really sure where to position himself but keen on being unnoticed. Natasha, Rhodey, Bruce, Sam, and Steve formed a loose semicircle around the table, while Vision drifted over to a window near the kitchen, gazing out of it. Wanda kept close to him, her arms tightly crossed as if she were trying to console herself. Upon Rhodey’s request, Friday projected imagery of four aliens—the two he’d seen in New York, and two others he didn’t recognize.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s them,” Bruce said, gesturing to the first pair. “They call themselves the Children of Thanos. That’s Ebony Maw, and Cull Obsidian, the ones that went after Strange. And these two—” He pointed at the others, a horned female and an elvish-looking male. They were depicted standing over Vision, trying to pry the Mind Stone from his forehead. “—Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive.”

Connor’s gaze remained fixed on the image as Rhodey said, “So we gotta assume they’re coming back, right?”

“And they can clearly find us,” Maximoff added.

Bruce nodded. “We need all hands on deck. Where’s Clint?”

“After the whole Accords situation, he and Scott took a deal,” Natasha explained. “It was too tough on their families. They’re on house arrest.”

“Who’s Scott?”

“Ant-Man,” Steve answered. His stoic expression was nearly unreadable, and Connor found it difficult to identify this rugged, battle-scarred man as history’s famous Star-Spangled Avenger.

“There’s an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?” Bruce shook his head, and started pacing. “Okay, look. Thanos has the biggest army in the universe, and he not gonna stop until he—he gets…” He faltered, then finished quietly, “Vision’s stone.”

“Well, then we have to protect it,” Nastasha said matter-of-factly, as if the homicidal aliens weren’t even a blip on her radar.

“No, we have to destroy it.”

Everyone’s eyes snapped to Vision. He turned away from the window, his synthetic face pensive. Then his gaze drifted over to Wanda

“I’ve been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head,” he continued, stepping toward her. “About its nature, but also its composition. I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source, something very similar to its own signature, perhaps...its molecular integrity could fail.”

“Yeah, and you with it,” Wanda said quietly, as he laid a hand on her arm. “We’re not having this conversation.”

“Eliminating the Stone is the only way to be certain that Thanos can’t get it,” Vision insisted.

But she shook her head, her eyes suspiciously bright. “That’s too high a price.”

The android reached up to cup her face in his hands, a tender gesture which contrasted sharply with the gravity of his words.

“Only you have the power to pay it.”

Steve shifted, and Connor focused on him for a moment, distracted.

During the final battle against Negative, Connor’s powers had undergone an intense metamorphosis. The energy he wielded was stronger now, more stable, and his empathic abilities had magnified. He no longer needed physical contact to read a person—he simply had to reach out while in their presence. This new augmentation came with its own side effects, however. Sometimes, he read people without meaning to, especially if they happened to be feeling something particularly strongly.

Vision’s words seemed to have triggered something in Steve, because his mask of a neutral emotion had fallen, revealing what lay underneath. Sympathy rolled off him in waves, but beneath that Connor detected nostalgia, and heartbreak. It was an aching longing which penetrated bone-deep, past the layers of duty and responsibility he had wrapped around himself.

It was the kind of grief reserved only for the worst of tragedies—that which one inflicted upon themselves.

Meanwhile Wanda, struck by Vision’s words, turned away from him.

He was asking her to kill him, Connor realized belatedly. There was a cold logic to the idea that he couldn’t deny—their advantage right now was that Thanos wasn’t actively attacking them, but that wouldn’t last. 

Her refusal was understandable. It was even worse that, according to Vision, she was the only person who could do it. If Peter had asked the same thing of him, he wouldn’t be able to do it. There was no hypothetical scenario where he could see himself agreeing to that plan.

And yet, he remembered being in Vision’s situation—when he’d sacrificed himself without hesitation. That had been easy.

“Thanos threatens half the universe,” Vision countered softly. “One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him.”

“But it should,” Steve spoke up. He was shaking his head softly, a muscle clenching in his jaw as he made a decision. “We don’t trade lives, Vision.”

Vision pivoted where he stood, immediately facing him. “Captain, 70 years ago you laid down your life to save how many millions of people. Tell me, why is this any different?”

“Because,” Bruce interjected, his eyes gleaming as if struck by inspiration. “You might have a choice. Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays—Jarvis, Ultron, Tony, me, the Stone. All of them mixed together, all of them learning from one another.”

Wanda leaned back against the kitchen counter behind her, hope flickering across her face. “You’re saying Vision isn’t just the Stone?”

“I’m saying that, if we take out the Stone, there’s still a whole lot of Vision left. Perhaps the best parts!” Bruce suggested. The possibility of a deathless solution was dangerous, infectious, and it spread throughout the room like wildfire.

“Can we do that?” Natasha asked.

Bruce paused, evidently coming to a halt. Then, he quietly admitted, “Not me, not here.”

“Well you better find someone and somewhere fast,” Rhodey warned, shaking his head. “Ross isn’t just gonna let you guys have your old rooms back.”

Connor had absolutely no idea. The best people he knew for the job were currently off-planet. Did someone smarter than Tony Stark even exist?

“I know somewhere,” Steve said. “Wakanda.”

“Seriously?” All eyes turned on Sam, who was fixing them with raised eyebrows. “You always said Wakanda was a no-fly zone. If we go there, they could track us.”

“We’ve got more important things than Ross to worry about, Sam.”

“Wait.” Bruce was frowning, as if staring at a difficult math problem. “Where...where Ultron’s vibranium came from? I thought Wakanda was a third world country.”

“You’ve been gone a long time, man,” Rhodey said, clapping him on the back. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you up to speed.” He glanced at Steve. “You’re sure?”

He nodded.

“Alright, then. You know where the armory is. Get whatever gear you need.”

Just like that, the group began to disperse. The rogue Avengers left, filtering out of the room all at once, but Bruce and Rhodey remained behind.

“If a fight breaks out, you know we’re gonna be the heavy hitters, right?” Rhodey asked. “You up for that?”

“Uh...” Bruce scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t think we should count on the Hulk.”

Rhodey grinned. “I’m asking you, Bruce. Don’t worry about the Hulk. I have you covered.” Then he caught sight of Connor, who was still watching them from his armchair. “Hey, kid. You ready to head out?”

Wait, what? Connor blinked at the two of them, incredulous. Since when was he involved?

Evidently, Bruce was thinking along the same lines, because he said a little testily, “Connor didn’t sign up for this.”

“I know that,” Rhodey replied patiently. “But for the first time in two years Ross knows exactly where Steve Rogers is. Very soon this place is gonna be full of guys with guns, and they’re not gonna care if he’s involved or not.”

“He’s right,” Connor agreed reluctantly. It was true—staying here meant getting arrested, and he wasn’t about to ask the Avengers to make a pit stop at May’s to let him off. Too much was at stake for them to waste time. “You’re stuck with me.”

Bruce’s shoulders slumped slightly, accepting defeat. Connor was touched that he seemed to care so much, though.

Meanwhile, Rhodey just nodded. “Quinjet leaves in ten. Don’t be late.”