Chapter Text
“Okay, I know I asked this before but seriously, how strong are you?” Ned asked.
“Pretty strong if he held up a building that was trying to crush him,” Michelle hummed as she nudged Peter’s shoulder with her front from where she sat on his bed. Said superhero looked up from the Millennium Falcon Lego set he was working on Ned. It had been a present from Tony as a thank you for protecting Morgan from the HYDRA agents a couple months ago.
Peter had tried to deny the gift on the grounds that he didn’t need a thank you. He had done it out of the love in his heart for his little sister and the drive to make sure she was okay. Tony then changed it to just being a get-well-soon gift and Peter had no choice but to accept it by that point. The two Lego loving best friends had to wait a bit to actually build it with Peter still healing and other activities taking place.
They had finally found a day to build it and Michelle had decided to join them where they were building it in Peter’s room of the tower. Tony was at some meet-the-teacher school event with Pepper and Morgan since the girl was starting school in the city soon. They had found a nice private elementary school near Peter’s high school and the boy was looking forward to the joint trips to and from school together. Tony had tried telling the teenager that he didn’t have to always do the trip with Morgan since he was pretty sure teenagers wouldn’t want to hang out with a kid.
Peter had taken offence to that, stating that he loved being with Morgan and the girl also loved Ned and Michelle. They were already planning on little after school trips to a café together or to the park once the weather was back to being nice and warm. Tony had told Pepper and May about it later and both women had teared up at the sheer warmth and sibling love that Peter held for Morgan. They were also appreciative to Ned and Michelle for being so accepting of the girl, and letting her join them on certain things.
But…that’s a matter for a later time. Let’s go back to the current events.
“That building was heavy as shit though,” Peter groaned as he remembered it. Sometimes his back still stung from the long-healed burn just to remind him of the pain.
“More than Ned and me combined could handle,” Michelle countered.
“Yeah, but you two weren’t bitten by radioactive spider,” Peter sassed at his girlfriend.
“Sometimes I wish I was,” Ned sighed. “Like, imagine being a super hero.”
“Dude, I don’t need to imagine it,” Peter deadpanned with a flat look as he clicked two Lego pieces together. “And it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.”
“We know,” Michelle nodded her head along. “We’ve waited alongside your hospital bed enough times for long enough to know that it’s a sacrifice to be a hero.”
“One I am willing to make for the ones I love,” Peter leaned his head back and smiled at his girlfriend. “And the good people of the city.”
“What about the bad people?” Ned laughed.
“Well…I guess I should help protect them,” Peter shrugged. “Makes me the same as them if I don’t help them.”
“You’re just too good for this world,” Michelle shook her head. “I wouldn’t help those that don’t deserve it.”
“Back to my question though,” Ned cleared his throat and attached two large pieces together. “How strong are you now?”
“No clue,” Peter shrugged as he really didn’t know. “We haven’t gotten around to testing it yet. I’ve pretty much based it on however much that building was.”
“But that was months ago,” Ned pointed out. “I think you’ve probably gotten stronger by this point.”
“And I think you have too much hope in my abilities,” Peter shot back as he looked around for his next piece. “Like, yeah, I’m probably getting stronger like you said I would but I don’t think it’s as fast as you are insinuating.”
“We need to test it out at some point,” Ned said to himself. “I want to get a quantifiable reading.”
“Go knock on some wood right now,” Michelle demanded with a finger pointed at Peter’s bed frame.
“I thought you were the non-superstitious one of the group,” Peter said to his girlfriend with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah but after dating you for this long, I know that your luck is shit and Ned totally just jinxed you,” Michelle shot back.
“It’ll be fine,” Peter smiled and reached up to lightly squeeze her ankle. “I’ve got you as a good luck charm to offset it.”
“Ew, why are you flirting right in front of me?” Ned stuck his tongue out.
“Why are you watching?” Michelle shot back.
“You are literally right in front of me!” Ned exclaimed. “Can’t you wait until I go home to try your dumb pick-up lines?!”
“They aren’t dumb,” Peter pouted. “I thought I was being pretty smooth.”
“Eh, I give it a 6 out of ten,” Michelle shrugged.
“Better than the last one a whole two points!” Peter whooped with a fist in the air.
“Dork,” Michelle rolled her eyes.
“I thought I was a nerd,” Peter smirked.
“You’re both,” Michelle said and picked her book back up. “You and Ned are both the biggest nerds I’ve ever met.”
“The bar is pretty high for us then,” Peter said to Ned, which made his best friend laugh. “Perhaps we should raise it even higher by getting another star wars set.”
“I wonder if Mr. Stark will get you an AT-AT if you ask,” Ned said to which Peter’s eyes shined in delight.
“He would buy Peter the entire company if Peter would let him,” Michelle huffed a laugh and went back to her book.
All thoughts of how Ned probably jinxed Peter went flying out of their mind…
…perhaps he should have remembered to knock on wood while he had the chance.
“Morgan, Peter is here!” a teacher called for the girl.
“Petey!” Morgan cheered as she ran down the sidewalk where Peter was waiting for her with a bright grin. Ned and Michelle stood at his side, Peter bending down to let Morgan throw herself into his arms for a hug. After a moment, he stood up and waved at the teacher. “Bye, Ms. Smith!” Morgan said to her teacher.
“Be careful on the way home you four!” Ms. Smith waved at the trio of teenagers and the elementary student. She turned away as they left to tend to the other students waiting for their guardians.
“Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!” Morgan cheered as she skipped on the sidewalk. One of her hands was held in Peter’s and the other in Michelle’s. Sometimes the two of them would swing Morgan in the air over a crack, making the elementary student giggle. Ned followed behind as he took the silent role of protecting the young Stark daughter.
They all knew that the safest place Morgan could be was at Peter’s side but it gave them all peace of mind to not always rely on Peter.
“We’ll get there in a few minutes, Mo,” Peter laughed and adjusted his bookbag strap. The three of them had picked up Morgan from her school as Peter was on the pick-up list and were taking her to get ice cream. They couldn’t always go home with the girl with their after-school activities or Peter going on patrol but today was a special treat.
Tony and the rest of the avengers were called out of state for a last-minute assignment. Pepper was due for a conference in Canada and May was upstate with Happy as the man needed to help his parents with something. The adults had all been panicking about what to do with Morgan when Peter offered to watch over her.
“Why didn’t anyone just ask me?” Peter asked as he watched Tony think it over.
“Kid, the last time we asked you to watch Mo, you were attacked by HYDRA and ended up in the med bay for two weeks,” Tony deadpanned.
“Yeah, but no one planned for that,” Peter rolled his eyes. “Come on. It’ll be fun. Ned, Michelle, and I can take her out for ice cream and then bring her straight to the tower to watch Disney.”
“That does sound like a good plan, especially since you’re not going to be alone and going to the tower.”
“See? A game plan,” Peter smiled and spun around in his rollie chair in the lab.
“You’re right,” Tony nodded as he soldered some wires down on Peter’s suit. “I’ll bring it up with Pep and May before giving the final approval but I think they’ll agree. I hope you three are ready for a Disney princess sing-along marathon though.”
“I never said we were watching Disney for the princesses,” Peter smirked. “I’m going to show her the magic that is being a star wars nerd.”
“You are not bringing your sister over to the dark side already,” Tony joked with a finger pointed at Peter.
“What flavor are you going to get this time, Morgan?” Michelle asks the girl with a smile. It made Peter so happy to see how well both his friends treated his sister, especially Michelle and it made his heart warm to watch.
“I’m gonna get cotton candy,” Morgan answered, jumping over a small crack in the sidewalk. “I got cookie dough last time but Cindy in class said cotton candy is better so I wanna try it.”
“I say you should try strawberry with chocolate syrup,” Ned piped up. He was holding his own bookbag over one shoulder and Morgan’s over the other. He wore the ‘my little pony’ bag with the pride only an unbothered older brother could have, especially when the girl said she thought of Ned as a brother.
“Why am I not a sister?” Michelle had asked. She wondered if she had done something to offend the girl that she needed to remedy.
Morgan looked up from her coloring in confusion and furrowed her brow. “Isn’t it weird to have a sister dating a brother?”
Peter fell to the ground laughing in the background as Tony turned away to hide his own laughter.
“Don’t worry,” Morgan said as she patted the shocked frozen teenager sitting next to her. “The books say that when you marry Petey, you’ll be something called a sister-in-law and then we will be real sisters.”
Michelle had shaken herself out of frozen state and smiled warmly at the girl, nudging their shoulders together. “Hey, will you be the flower girl when it’s time for that?” With a peek over her shoulder, she could see Peter’s face reddening while Tony smirked at the embarrassed boy.
Dropping her crayons and grabbing Michelle’s hand, Morgan’s face was the expression of all the seriousness a 6-and-a-half-years old could have. “If you have anyone else, I will feed all of Petey’s left socks to Gerald.”
“Wait, what?!” Peter screeched from his spot as Michelle and Tony roared in laughter. “Why just me?! And why just the left?!”
“You know why,” Morgan shrugged a shoulder mysteriously and turned back to her drawing.
“But I don’t!”
To this day, Peter never got an answer.
Peter was about to give his input about what ice cream he was going to get when he felt the ground shake underneath of them. They all stopped in their tracks, Peter moving to pull Morgan up into his arms in one fast movement.
“Was that an earthquake?” Michelle frowned. There was another shake that ended all too soon.
“Something that short? No way,” Ned answered as he whipped his phone out to start looking on social media for any clues. “It feels like someone stomping.”
“Whatever it is, it can’t be good,” Peter grumbled. He turned on his heel to head towards the nearest alleyway with the other two following closely. Ned positioned himself at the entrance while Michelle held her arms out to take Morgan. It was an easy transition as Michelle took Morgan, tucking her close as she kept a watchful eye out.
Peter rushed over to the entrance with Ned to look out for whatever was causing the noise. He was answered when a very tall and bulky man in a red color scheme went stomping by at the end of the street with Dr. Strange flying around him. The wizard could be seen moving his hands around in complex spells to slow down the giant but it did nothing. America, one of the new young heroes that Peter had recently met as his superhero self, ran after the two with shaking fists.
“Oh, okay, um, we've got a new bad guy on the block,” Ned muttered.
Part of Peter felt like he should leave the villain to Dr. Strange and America and honor his promise to Tony. That he should take Morgan home and watch Disney all day and watch over her. To not be a hero this one time and stay with the others.
But his Spidey-sense was something else entirely.
It was telling him something dangerous, that this guy was someone that he was supposed to fight. That if he walked away, then he was going to be pulled in some other way that was going to cost him dearly.
Inhaling deeply and squaring his shoulders, Peter came to a decision.
“Peter?” Michelle whispered as she caught the moment that Peter made his decision.
Turning on his heel, Peter made his way back into the alley way and tossed his bookbag on top of a nearby closed trash can, pulling off his shirt to reveal his suit that he decided to wear under his clothes that day. Part of him took the moment to wonder if it was by chance or fate that he did. Kicking off his shoes, he reaches into his bookbag to get his suit shoes out.
“No,” Morgan started to cry as she recognized what was going to happen. Memories of Peter gearing up for the fight against HYDRA months earlier played in her head and she turned to hide her face into Michelle’s shoulder to cry.
“I have to,” Peter said to them as his second shoe was pulled on. “Something is telling me that they can’t handle this dude.”
Michelle shook her head quietly, her own memories of Peter going off into past battles on her mind, fresh on her mind like a ripped off scab every time she watched him go off again. She pulled Morgan closer as Peter pulled his mask out and pull it on his head to have the end stop at his brow line.
Peter stepped closer and placed a hand on Michelle’s cheek. He kissed her forehead as her shoulders shook to which Peter knew the reason why.
“Take her and run,” Peter instructed Michelle as he peeked down at the crying Morgan. He peered over his shoulder where Dr. Strange was trying and failing to contain the giant villain. Looking back, he peered deep into Michelle’s watering eyes. His girlfriend was clutching the crying Morgan close to her as she tried to contain her own watering eyes. “Run as far as possible and if possible, get to the safe room in the tower. Take the side entrance, Friday will be looking for you and will let you in no problem.”
“What about you?” Ned asked. He stood at the entrance of the alleyway and kept an eye out if anyone was watching. Peter still had the suit mask off and his pants on to just show the top of it.
“I gotta go help,” Peter said to his best friend. He stepped away to pull his pants off and stuff them in his bookbag. Rifling through, he pulled out his extra web fluid and put it in his built-in suit pocket. “Mr. Stark and the others are out of the city right now.”
“Petey?” Morgan sniffled as she finally pulled her face away from Michelle’s shoulder. “Are you going to win?”
Peter held his tongue. He wanted to say that he was going to win but something about the sheer strength it seemed like the villain had made Peter pause. Laying a hand on his sister’s head to ruffle her hair, he gave her a bright smile. “I’m definitely not going to lose, that’s a promise.”
“Peter…” Michelle breathed. She didn’t know what else to say so she let her actions speak for her by rushing forward to kiss Peter. It was quick, too quick, but it expressed all that Michelle wanted to say and Peter understood.
Pulling the bookbag up, Peter tossed it over to Ned. He pulled his mask over his face with a final wink at the girls. Morgan tucked her face back into Michelle’s shoulder, his girlfriend sniffing to herself to reign in her own tears. Peter turned away and stepped right up next to Ned, patting a hand on his shoulder. The two of them looked out towards the bad guy, decidedly not at each other. “Dude, I need you to do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Protect them,” Peter said quietly as he readied his web shooters. “I need you to do it for me.”
“With my life,” Ned swore, gripping the book bags tighter in his hands.
“Look, it’s your chance to be a hero like you wanted,” Peter teased with a smile behind his mask. His joke sort-of made its mark with Ned giving a wiry smile.
Ned raised his fist towards Peter and the spider themed hero pounded his own fist against his best friend’s. Without another word, Peter shot a web and went flying out of the alleyway towards where all the sounds of the fight were coming from.
He swung over and figured the best way to find the fight was go the opposite way of all the civilians running away underneath of him. A few of them yelled at Spider-Man about the giant man to which he gave them a salute to say that he was on the job. “Karen, connect me to whatever comms the wizard and America are using,” Peter requested his AI.
“Of course, Peter. One moment,” Karen said before there was a click as he was connected.
“You guys need some help with big and red?” Peter smirked into the mic as he swung over and landed on a nearby light pole.
“Spider-Man!” America cheered as she turned to where Peter was. He gave a small wave as some tension left America’s shoulders. “Perfect timing!”
“So, what’s the dealio?”
“We are trying to send this villain back to his own universe,” Dr. Strange grunted as he pulled on his magic cords wrapped around the villain. It honestly looked like the wizard was just annoying the large man more as he continued stepping forward.
“And how did someone not from our universe end up here?”
“That would be because of me,” America’s voice answered apologetically through the mic. “I was practicing with my powers and I messed up. I opened a portal up in time for this guy to come flying through from a fight in his own universe. I was so surprised that I closed the portal before his universe’s heroes could grab him back.”
“Welp, this is going to be interesting,” Peter grumbled. “Can’t you or Dr. Strange send him back?”
“If we can get a good grip on him,” Dr. Strange grunted. There was a short burst of static on his end of the line before the wizard went flying past Peter to slam into a building.
Peter could see Dr. Strange fall to the ground in a heap and not get back up. “Oh, that’s not good,” Peter muttered to himself.
“What are we supposed to do?!” America stressed with her hands grabbing at her hair.
Peter looks at the villain with a weird looking metal helmet. He stomped forward and was throwing cars around for the pure joy of destruction. Building sides fell to his fists and the road was littered with giant footsteps. Thoughts ran a million miles an hour in Peter’s mind as he figured out what to do.
He knew he was strong but he knew this was too much for him to handle on his own.
“Karen, call the avengers and keep calling until they answer,” Peter instructed as he shot a web to get closer. “Tell them what is going on and to get here as soon as possible with all our strong fighters. I’m going to hold him off and keep him distracted for as long as possible.”
“I have started calling like you want. I will relay the message and make sure they don’t interrupt you with a call mid-fight,” Karen said in acknowledgement. “Anything else?”
Peter weighed his options as he watched the villain punch another building and how much broke off. “…alert the medical team to prepare. I don’t think I’m going to be walking out of this fight on my own.”
“…very well. Good luck, Peter.”
“Thanks, Karen.”
“What do you want me to do?” America asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Stay back,” Peter said and got low to the ground. “Leave this one to me.”
“No way!” America scoffed. “I can fight too!” With that, the new hero on the block ran forward with a fist prepared to punch the villain in the side. With her yell, the villain heard her and turned to see her coming.
“America! No!” Peter yelled as he knew what was going to happen.
“Oh no,” America squeaked as the villain caught her hand.
“Yeah, oh no,” the villain hissed as he tightened his grip. Raised his arm and America by extension, he spun her in the air and toss the girl right into a nearby building. Peter winced as he heard the loud thud of her head against the building before she slack body fell to the ground.
“Dude, that was just cold,” Peter said as he jumped over, bounding over cars to jump in the air and punch the villain in the face. To his surprise, it didn’t phase the villain the slightest and actually hurt him instead. “Damn, that hurt,” Peter winced as he jumped back to avoid being grabbed and hung from a nearby awning.
“Spider-Man,” the villain growled and clenched his fists.
“You know me?” Peter rose an eyebrow under his mask, shaking his smarting fist out.
“Of course, we have fought before,” the villain scoffed.
“Good to know there is another me,” Peter nodded to himself. “Yeah, dude, you may have fought one of me before but not me.”
“Makes no difference. Squash one spider, you’ve squashed them all,” the villain grumbled.
“Well, that’s just rude,” Peter pouted and propped his hands on his hips from where he hung upside down on the building’s awning.
“I see your annoyance is the same as ever,” the villain said as he pulled a fist back.
“So, what’s your name big guy?” Peter asked, deftly jumping out of the way as the large guy tried punching him.
“Juggernaut,” the man sniffed, cracking his fingers.
“Ohh, that’s a cool one,” Peter marveled. “Much better than some of the others I’ve heard.”
“I do not care for talking,” Juggernaut growled.
“Alright, looks like we are jumping straight into fighting,” Peter groaned right as Juggernaut plowed right towards him.
Peter raised his hands in front of him, trying to force Juggernaut to stop moving forward with his own strength. He let himself loosen his control more than usual based on how his punch earlier hurt him instead of the villain. It caught him completely off guard when instead of staying place, he was plowed backwards.
A cough of pain broke out of him as Juggernaut did not stop and ran straight through a brink building, letting Peter’s back take the brunt of the move. Leaving the other side of the building, Peter jumped away from Juggernaut, ghosting a hand over the back of his shoulder and coming back slightly bloody.
“Damn dude, that was like be hit by a freight train,” Peter winced.
“No, that is the wrong word,” Juggernaut shook his head and readied himself to rush forward again.
“And what would you escribe it as?” Peter asked, trying to buy time without having to fight.
“Like being hit with a juggernaut,” Juggernaut smirked before rushing forward once more.
“Ah, shit,” Peter cursed.