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Peter wasn’t quite sure how he had ended up working with Loki, of all people.
According to Thor, Loki was currently going through a phase where he wasn’t trying to actively kill everyone, which meant it was a great time to bring Loki to Earth to meet the Avengers. (“Comforting,” Mr. Stark had grumbled.) So when a call came in requesting immediate assistance from the Avengers on a rapidly escalating situation involving aliens in Ottawa, Loki had joined the rest of them on the quinjet.
Captain America—Call me Steve, son—had briefed them on the way over. The aliens were vaguely humanoid creatures, except for the fact that they had tentacles in place of arms and were a vivid purple. At that point, Thor chipped in to say that the aliens were called Randar. As far as anyone could tell, their main objective seemed to be causing chaos, and while no fatalities had been reported as of yet, law enforcement officers had found themselves unable to prevent the Randar from roaming all over the city. Thus, the Avengers.
Five minutes away from arrival, Steve started dividing up the team.
“Clint, find somewhere high and see if you can pick out where they’re coming from. Tony and Sam, I want you in the air. Form a five-block perimeter and keep all Randar within the area.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Mr. Stark said cheerfully, sending a mock salute in Steve’s direction. Steve merely rolled his eyes and continued.
“Bruce, stay with the quinjet. We’ll try to avoid a Code Green, but be ready just in case. Nat, Peter, Loki, Bucky, and I will be on the ground. Immobilize the Randar and work with the police to keep all civilians safe. Thor, help wherever needed, whether on the ground or in the air.” Steve paused to survey the team. “Watch each other’s backs and don’t take stupid risks, alright?”
There were a series of nods and various noises of affirmation, and then Natasha was setting the quinjet down in a mostly-empty parking lot. Sam unfurled his wings and took off, followed closely by Mr. Stark and Clint. After setting the archer upon the rooftop of a nearby high rise, Mr. Stark flew off to begin securing the perimeter. Thor twirled his hammer around a couple times before launching himself into the air.
The ground team split up and Peter found himself swinging through the streets, webbing up any Randar he came across. It wasn’t really that hard of a mission. The Randar were slow moving for the most part, so Peter had little trouble webbing them to lamp posts, the sides of buildings, and the roads.
Every so often he would run into one of the other Avengers on the ground, especially as those in the air corralled the Randar into an ever-decreasing area. Steve and Bucky (and wow it still felt weird to refer to two of America’s most well-known war heroes by their first names/nicknames) were tag-teaming, throwing Steve’s shield back and forth, and taking out multiple Randar with each throw.
Natasha’s Widow Bites were proving unexpectedly effective against the Randar, which gave Peter an idea.
“Karen, switch to taser webs.”
He shot a web at a Randar rounding the corner and couldn’t help but grin at the way the Randar dropped like a stone. Its tentacles spasmed for a moment before falling still. Their physiology was obviously not well suited to electricity—a fact Peter was going to put to good use.
“Hey Mr. Hawkeye, you remember watching The Two Towers, right?” Peter asked. The team had marathoned the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy a couple weeks ago, and Clint had been one of the few still awake at the end of Return of The King.
“What about it, kid?”
“You know the battle of Helm’s Deep with Gimli and Legolas?”
“Oh you’re going down!”
Peter had just zapped his fourteenth Randar (Hawkeye was on eleven. Beat that, Mr. Hawkeye! ) when Karen spoke up. “Peter, my sensors indicate that several people are hiding within the bank on the corner.” She directed his attention towards a red-brick building with shattered glass windows.
“Thanks, Karen.” Peter flipped through the air to land in front of the building. A police blockade was set up two blocks away, so all Peter had to do was get the people safely there. “Let me know if any Randar find their way to this street.”
He pushed the door open and stepped inside, mindful of the pieces of glass that lined the floor.
“Hey guys,” he called. “Spider-Man here. I’m going to take you to safety. All you have to do is follow me.”
Cautiously, people began to emerge from behind the counters and couches where they had been sheltering. There were nine people in total—three tellers, the bank manager, a janitor, a woman and her two children (twins by the looks of it), and a teenager who looked to be around Peter’s age.
Peter smiled encouragingly at them, then realized that his mask prevented anyone from seeing his smile. He cleared his throat. “Alright guys, this is how it’s going to go. The police are just down that way—” he pointed to the right— “and I’ll make sure you guys are covered. We’ll go when I give the word. Is everyone good with that?”
A few hesitant nods, and Peter glanced up and down the street before ushering the group out of the bank. Thankfully no Randar appeared and Peter delivered the people to the police without incident.
Then, with a “Thank you, Spider-Man!” shouted at his back, Peter swung off down the street in search of more aliens. Several things had happened while he had been dealing with the bank group. Mr. Stark had found a portal-creating device (where that had come from Peter didn’t know, nor why someone had activated it) which was creating the portal through which the Randar were coming, and was working on disarming it while the rest of the Avengers cleared out the last of the Randar.
More importantly, however, was that Hawkeye had made good use of the time Peter was indisposed and now had a grand total of seventeen.
It was at this point that Peter landed beside Loki on a corner. (Elgin and Cooper Streets, a sign helpfully informed him.) A group of five Randar were coming down the street, and yeah, Peter and Loki could probably take them together, but that was boring and if Peter wanted to beat Hawkeye—of course he did, he would never hear the end of it if he didn’t—he needed to take them all down himself. From the comments over the comms this was one of the last groups still in action.
Luckily, Peter had been listening to Thor’s battle stories, and he took inspiration from one of them.
“Hey Mr. Loki, can we do ‘Get Help’?”
If looks could kill, Peter would be dead and buried six feet under already because oh boy Loki’s glare was worse than Aunt May’s when Peter did something extremely stupid like try to see how many ghost peppers he could eat in 30 seconds. (That particular adventure had ended with Peter desperately chugging their expired milk and then vomiting said milk and peppers all over the kitchen.) It was an awkward situation, so Peter being Peter, he decided to keep talking in the hopes of making things better.
“Mr. Thor said it’s an extremely effective battle technique and he also said that you love it, although I wasn’t really sure about that part but—”
“My brother is a bumbling oaf, as are you if you think for one second that I would ever consent to being thrown around by the likes of you,” Loki snapped.
Peter’s eyes widened and he held up his hands.
“Oh no no no.” He shook his head vigorously. “I would never try to throw you, Mr. Loki! I meant you should throw me .”
Loki glare turned slightly less murderous and he considered Peter for a second before saying: “Very well then.”
He pulled Peter’s arm over his shoulder and instructed him to ‘act injured’. He didn’t give any more instruction than that, so Peter improvised, leaning into Loki and letting his leg drag behind him as if he had sprained an ankle. They rounded the corner to find the Randar about about a bus-length away.
“Get help!” Loki yelled, and whoops they probably should have let the other Avengers in on their plan because there was an immediate flurry of worried questions through the comms which Loki and Peter ignored for the time being. The Randar paused in confusion.
“Spider-Man’s been hurt! Help him!”
And then Peter was hurtling through the air and smashing into the Randar; taking them out like they were a bunch of bowling pins, he was the bowling ball, and Loki was the bowler who had just scored a strike. He rolled a couple times on the pavement before springing to his feet and taser webbing all five Randar.
“Spider-Man, report.” Steve’s voice came over the comms, and Peter had just enough time to say he was fine before Iron Man was landing on the pavement beside Loki
Iron Man’s faceplate flipped up to reveal Mr. Stark glaring heatedly at Loki. “Reindeer Games, did you just throw Spider-Man at the aliens?” he asked incredulously.
“It was the child’s suggestion, Stark,” Loki replied coolly.
Thor landed in the street carrying Clint with him. He surveyed the scene with a chuckle. “Get Help?” he asked.
“I’m beginning to see why you like it so much, brother,” said Loki. “I shall have to use this technique more often in the future—considering of course, that I will be the one who does the throwing.” He smirked.
Thor took a half step backwards. “Man of Spiders, you’ve doomed us all,” he muttered, and Peter was unable to tell whether he was joking or not.
“Eighteen, Spider-Man,” Clint said from beside Peter, causing him to leap in surprise. Amusement danced in Clint’s eyes at the reaction, but it was wiped out with a single word.
“Nineteen.”
Clint whipped his bow off his shoulder and was drawing an arrow from his almost-empty quiver when Peter grabbed the bow from his grasp.
“Oh no you don’t, you cheater!”
Clint sighed and rolled his eyes, then attempted to steal the bow back out of Peter’s hands. However, Peter had been expecting the move and was already stepping out of reach. Clint tried a few more times before giving up and simply holding out his hands.
“Alright, you win. Now give me back my bow or I will make it my personal mission to eat all the marshmallows from the Lucky Charms, leaving you marshmallow-less for the rest of your life.”
Peter gasped and put a hand to his chest. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
Peter gave the bow back.