Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter Parker lay crumpled in the filth of the alley like a broken marionette whose strings had been violently cut. His body was twisted unnaturally—legs sprawled in opposite directions, one bent at a grotesque angle where the femur had snapped clean through the skin, the bone gleaming white beneath the blood. One arm was tucked awkwardly under his torso, likely dislocated or broken.The other was stretched out in front of him, palm scraped raw, fingers bent at unnatural angles—nails cracked or missing entirely, caked in grime and blood—as if he’d tried to claw his way toward some semblance of safety before his strength gave out. Deep gouges along his fingertips suggested he'd dragged himself forward through broken glass or debris, desperate, disoriented, and in agony.

His face was a canvas of brutality. One eye was swollen shut, purple and black with burst capillaries, while the other stared blankly, barely responsive. His jaw hung slack and off-kilter, clearly dislocated—his bottom teeth exposed in a warped, pitiful angle that made speaking or even breathing painful. Blood pooled in his mouth and dribbled down his cheek, mixing with the dirt and grime caking his skin.

The side of his head was matted with blood from a skull fracture, where the skin had split open from repeated blunt-force trauma—likely a crowbar or boot. His hair was stiff with drying blood, and small pieces of brick dust clung to the clotted wound. Bruising crept down his neck and chest, and his suit—what was left of it—was shredded, melted in places where something corrosive had been poured or splashed onto him. His abdomen rose and fell in shallow, shaky movements, ribs clearly broken—each breath a miracle.

Beneath him, the alley was painted red. His blood had seeped into the cracks in the pavement, mixing with puddles of oil and trash. Flies buzzed lazily around the scene. He was barely recognizable—just a broken boy lost in the filth, beaten to the edge of death and thrown away like garbage.

And yet, he was still alive. 

——🕷️——

Clint Barton found the boy nearly six hours after the attack, following a hunch and a sickening feeling that had clawed at his gut ever since Peter went dark on comms. The alley was narrow, half-choked with trash bins and shadows, reeking of rot and old oil. Clint moved carefully, bow in hand, every sense alert—until he saw the smear of red leading into the darkness like a morbid breadcrumb trail.

Then he saw him.

Peter was barely recognizable. A crumpled figure in the filth, twisted in a way that made Clint’s breath catch. His first instinct was to rush forward, but the sight rooted him in place for a split second—long enough to feel the horror settle deep in his bones.

"Jesus, kid..."

The words left Clint in a whisper as he rushed forward and knelt beside him, dropping his bow with a soft clatter. He scanned quickly—one arm tucked under Peter’s chest, the other outstretched with bloodied fingers curled in frozen desperation. His face was a mask of blood and swelling, jaw grotesquely off-center, and when Clint gently touched his head to check where all of the blood was coming from, he could feel the unnatural soft swell of the fractured skull beneath matted, sticky hair. Clint pressed his fingers to Peter’s neck. A pulse— thready and weak, but a pulse nonetheless.

Clint swallowed hard.

He didn’t even think about calling it in—he hit the emergency comms line instantly. “Barton to Tower—medevac now. I’ve got him. It’s Peter. He’s—” His voice cracked. “He’s alive, but barely.”

Bruce’s voice crackled over the comms, tight and focused.

“Copy that, Barton. We’ve got your location. Quinjet's already in the air—ETA four minutes.” Clint let out a shaky breath. Thank god the team had already been in the area looking for Peter. It would have been at least a 15 minute flight from the Tower. 

There was a pause, the sound of frantic typing and shuffling in the background.
“How bad?”

Clint didn’t answer right away, just looked down at Peter’s ruined face, the blood soaking through his suit.

Bruce again, quieter now, strained:
“Clint—how bad is he?”

Clint exhaled shakily. “Fractured skull. Face is a mess. Pulse is weak. He’s not conscious. He’s not… he’s not waking up.”

Another pause. Then Bruce’s voice, soft but firm:

“Okay. Okay, listen to me. Keep pressure on any visible bleeding. Don’t move his head or spine. Just hold him steady. We’ve got you. We’re bringing him home.”

There was a low, ragged gasp from Peter just then—one that sounded more like a choke than a breath. Clint dropped his communicator, shifting closer, brushing blood and dirt from Peter’s cheek with a gentleness that didn’t match the fury building in his chest.

“I got you, kid,” he whispered, voice tight. “You held on. I’m here.”

Clint exhaled sharply, steadying himself as he brushed a trembling hand through Peter’s blood-matted curls. His fingers came away slick and red, and his stomach twisted at the sight. The kid’s face was a mess—one eye swollen shut, bruises blooming dark across his cheekbones, a split lip crusted with dried blood. A long gash ran from his temple to his jaw, still seeping sluggishly. He pulled his jacket off of himself and balled it up, pressing it to Peter’s head. Clint swallowed hard, his throat tight. Peter looked so damn young like this. Too young to be lying half-dead in some back alley. 

“Damn it, Parker,” Clint muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. 

 He adjusted his jacket, pressing it more firmly against Peter’s skull to slow the bleeding. A weak, barely-there noise slipped from Peter’s throat. It wasn’t much—just a faint, breathy sound—but Clint latched onto it like a lifeline.

 “Hey, hey—Peter?” He leaned in closer, hand resting lightly on the side of the kid’s face, careful not to jostle him too much. “You with me, buddy?” 

Peter didn’t respond, but his fingers twitched slightly against the concrete. Clint cursed under his breath, pressing his comms again. 

“Hurry it up,” he snapped, urgency lacing his voice. “He’s bad. Really bad.” 

A pause. Then, Bruce’s voice— “We’re almost there. Just keep him stable.” 

Clint huffed out a breath, glancing down at the kid again. His chest was still rising, still falling—too shallow, too slow, but still moving. That was something.

“Come on, Spider-kid,” Clint murmured, his thumb absently swiping across Peter’s bloodied cheek in a silent, desperate attempt at comfort. “Stay with me. Help’s almost here.” 

The puddle of blood beneath Peter’s head had gone cold, sticky against Clint’s knees. He could smell it now, thick and metallic, mingled with the faint, sickening scent of vomit and piss. The alley reeked of pain and death. He gagged and swallowed it back, bile burning the back of his throat.

 “Jesus Christ,” he choked, his voice cracking over the comm. “Bruce, I—shit—I think I’m gonna be sick.” 

“Clint, you need to focus. Stop the bleeding the best you can. We’re almost to your location.” It was Natasha’s voice this time. Her voice was sharp, but Clint could hear the tension and worry in it.

He forced himself to focus, to move. He had to. If he let himself feel too much right now, if he let the nausea take hold, he’d be useless. He ripped off a strip of his sleeve and pressed it to Peter’s side, where the boy's ribs had collapsed inward like paper, blood bubbling at the corners of his lips with every labored breath. Peter gurgled faintly then—barely audible, but it was enough. Enough to twist Clint’s gut into a tighter knot. 

“He’s bleeding from his ears,” Clint said, his voice now a hollow rasp. “I think his brain’s swelling. There’s so much blood, Bruce. I can’t even tell how many injuries he’s got. It’s all just… torn skin and bone and—God—he’s fifteen.” 

Clint’s breath came out in jagged bursts as he fought to keep it together. He could feel the weight of the moment pressing down on him, a pressure that settled in his chest like a stone. The kid’s condition was beyond critical—he was a mess of shattered bones, torn flesh, and barely-there breaths, his body crushed under a brutal weight Clint couldn’t fathom.

He moved gently, trying not to jar Peter's broken form. His hands trembled as they hovered near Peter’s body, unsure of how much pressure was too much. He wasn’t a doctor, but he knew the basics—clamp down on the bleeding, keep the kid warm, keep him alive until the medics could get there. He tried to cover Peter's head more firmly with his jacket, the blood soaking through the fabric too quickly, too much.

"Stay with me, kid," Clint muttered again, his voice cracking slightly as he brushed a blood-soaked curl from Peter’s forehead, his fingers lingering there for a moment too long.

He barely recognized the urgency in his own voice, the way he was leaning into the boy’s face like this would somehow make a difference. But he’d seen it—had seen the light go out in too many people’s eyes before. He couldn’t let it happen to Peter. Not here. Not now.

A soft groan escaped Peter’s lips. Clint’s heart skipped a beat.

“Peter?” Clint's voice was almost a prayer now, rough and desperate. “Come on, buddy. Open your eyes for me.”

It was only a flicker—a brief flutter of an eyelash, a twitch of his head—but it was enough. Enough to make Clint’s chest tighten with a fragile thread of hope. The kid wasn’t gone yet. Not yet.

The comm line crackled, but there was no immediate answer—not for several seconds. Just silence. Then Bruce’s voice came through, tight, shaken. “We’re landing. Sixty seconds. Stay with him, Clint. We’ve got him.”

But Clint didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His throat was closed up, his chest caving in with the pressure of it all. His hands were soaked in Peter’s blood, his palms sticky, tacky, trembling. The world around him had narrowed to just the broken boy in his arms and the deafening sound of nothing—no cries, no pleas, no screams. Just silence and blood.

Peter’s breathing was getting shallower, the gurgle more pronounced with each exhale. Clint adjusted the pressure on his ribs, knowing it might hurt him—knowing it was probably all that was keeping him breathing.

“You hear that, kid?” he whispered, pressing his forehead to Peter’s clammy temple. “They're coming. We’re gonna get you out of here.”

The heat of the alley was suffocating, and Clint could still smell the piss-soaked pavement, the coppery stench of blood and fear. His vision blurred for a second, and he didn’t know if it was sweat or tears, but he didn’t care anymore. All that mattered was keeping Peter breathing for a few more seconds. Just long enough.

His hand drifted down, resting lightly over Peter’s chest—feeling every shallow rise and fall, counting them like lifelines.

“I’ve got you. You’re not alone. You’re not dying here, okay?” His voice cracked again. “You’re gonna wake up in a bed, in the Tower, and you’re gonna bitch at me for bleeding on your suit or some dumbass thing. You’re not ending here, you hear me?”

He heard boots on the pavement then—rushed, heavy steps. The Quinjet overhead. He didn’t look up. He didn’t dare look away.

Because Peter twitched again—just a spasm, another reflex—but Clint didn’t care. It was enough.

“Come on, Parker,” he breathed, clinging to that flicker like a drowning man. “Come on, kid. Just hang on. You aren’t dying in some random alley.”

The words hung in the air like a promise Clint wasn’t sure he could keep—but he said them anyway. He had to.

Chapter Text

The Night Before — Hours Earlier

Peter swung through the Lower East Side just past 11 p.m., chasing a lead on a stolen weapons cache he’d tracked to a warehouse on the edge of the docks. It wasn’t supposed to be anything big—just a standard recon mission. Peter almost didn’t follow up. He’d had a long day already—school, patrol, the usual petty thefts and car chases—but the way the informants had said it stuck with him. There was something in their tones, like even speaking it out loud had put a target on their backs.

There had been whispers of a dangerous crew moving through the district, and tonight, they were making their move. No one could say exactly what they were after—some said weapons, others said something worse—but Peter knew one thing for sure: he wasn’t going to let them get away with whatever it was.

So, Peter went looking.

He traced the latest shipment location to a warehouse near a few rundown old buildings. The data pointed to that site as the next drop point, and it was set to happen that night.

He didn’t tell anyone. No check-in with the Tower, no text to May, not even a tracker ping to Friday. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was just exhaustion dulling his better judgment. Whatever it was, he took off into the night without backup.

He went in alone.

—— 🕷️——

Landing on a rooftop, Peter crouched low and surveyed the scene. Below, in a dimly lit alleyway, a group of men were gathered, their conversation harsh and clipped. They were unloading crates, the heavy clink of metal echoing in the silence of the night. Their leader, a tall man with a scar running down his face, barked orders, his voice rough and commanding. Peter narrowed his eyes, slipping back into the shadows.

He was outnumbered, but not outmatched. Not yet. He scanned the area, planning his approach. The thieves weren’t ordinary criminals—they moved with precision, knew exactly how to stay under the radar, and they were dangerous. But that was why he was here. To stop them before they did more damage.

The first man didn’t even see him coming. Peter dropped from the rooftop like a shadow, his fist catching the thief in the gut before he could even blink. The man crumpled to the ground, groaning, and Peter didn’t hesitate—he moved like a blur, already knocking out another one before the first hit the pavement. The third man was faster, his reflexes sharper, but Peter dodged a knife swipe and landed a well-placed punch to his throat.

One by one, the thieves fell, their attempts to retaliate only slowing them down. Peter's mind raced, calculating each move with precision. This was what he did—this was what he was good at. They tried to regroup, but Peter was too quick. He dodged a bullet, redirected another’s kick, and disarmed one of them with a swift twist of his wrist. But as the last of the group tried to scramble for cover, something shifted in the air. Peter felt it—a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, a sudden awareness that something wasn’t right.

He turned just in time to see the leader, the scarred man, coming at him from behind, a syringe in his hand. Peter moved to dodge, but the man was faster than he'd expected. The needle drove into his neck before he could react, the cold sting a sharp contrast to the burning heat that spread immediately through his veins.

It was fast acting, and within seconds Peter was stumbling.

His head began to pound like a drum. His limbs feeling like lead, muscles weak and trembling, vision a swimming blur. Whatever they hit him with—it wasn’t just a sedative. It was designed to take someone like him down fast.

He staggered, one hand bracing against the brick wall. The world tilted violently as Peter tried to move forward, his legs like rubber, barely responding to the panic screaming in his brain. The drug coursing through his system made everything blur, his spider-sense a constant shrill alarm that he couldn't focus on. At some point he lurched and tripped, slamming into the concrete.

Peter's hand shot out for his webshooter, which had landed a few feet away, but they kicked it aside.

He rolled onto his back as a figure loomed over him, fist raised.

Peter lashed out instinctively.

A grunt. A curse. Someone staggered back. Peter rolled, barely dodging a boot meant for his ribs, and pushed himself to his feet. His balance faltered. His vision split in two. But adrenaline surged with the fragments of clarity he had left. His vision swam, but as the attacker raised a fist again, Peter lashed out again, his arm catching the man’s jaw with a weak but surprising uppercut.

It was enough.

Not to win—but to run.

He bolted, stumbling like a drunk, weaving between trash cans and crates. The attackers shouted behind him, but he didn’t look back. He couldn’t. All he could do was move, blindly, like an animal.

Run. Just run.

Each step felt like it would be his last, but he bolted down the alley, slipping on wet concrete and stumbling over debris.

The city around him was unrecognizable—skewed and monstrous under the haze of drugs and fear. He had no idea where he was. He needed to get somewhere safe. Somewhere with people. But every turn led deeper into shadows. He scraped against brick walls, tried to climb—but his hands shook too much, his strength gone.

The world tilted sideways again as Peter staggered, his breath ragged, every heartbeat thudding in his ears like a war drum. The drug was really coursing through him now—something engineered, not your run-of-the-mill sedative. His spider-sense was going haywire, short-circuiting between warning him and frying his brain with static.

Move. Get out. They're still close.

A wrong turn. Another alley. Narrower this time. Claustrophobic.

Peter, disoriented and sluggish now, hobbled further into the maze of alleyways. His chest heaved with shallow breaths, his limbs uncoordinated as he tried to steady himself, but the drug in his system made it almost impossible to keep his bearings. His hands shook as they reached for the wall to balance himself. He was in a daze, head lolling to one side as his vision blurred. His legs wouldn’t carry him any further.

His senses were dulled, his body heavy and unresponsive to his commands. His mind fought against the fog that clouded it, but it was no use. The edges of his world were fraying, and all he could do was try to focus on not falling over. He didn’t know where he was, or even how he’d gotten there. All he knew was that he had to keep moving.

Then came the footsteps.

They were slow at first, methodical, like they were expecting him to turn around.

And when he did—when his blurred eyes caught the movement in the dark—there were three of them, emerging from the shadows.

Figures dressed in black, their faces hidden beneath hoods and masks, but the gleam of metal in their hands told him everything he needed to know.

Chapter Text

Peter’s vision blurred. His legs wobbled as his body suddenly felt like lead. His breath hitched in his throat, and he tried to force his muscles into action, but it was like swimming through molasses. His mind raced, fighting to stay focused, but the darkness was already creeping in at the edges. 

"You should've stayed out of this, bug," the leader spat, watching him sway. "But you're not so tough now, are you?"

One of the figures moved first. A long, thick pipe swung out, smashing into Peter’s knees with a sickening crack. Peter’s body gave way, hitting the ground with a thud. His vision spun, everything turning into a dizzying haze of colors and sounds. He fought to keep his eyes open, his hand reaching for something—anything—but it was too late. He tried to move, to get up, but his legs wouldn't respond.

——🕷️——

They didn’t want to kill him—not right away. That much became clear. They wanted him aware. Wanted him to feel it. To break.

The beatings started immediately. Questions followed, but they weren’t looking for answers. Not really. They knew who he was. They knew everything. His age. His identity. His connection to the Avengers. 

The drug in his system made him sluggish, unable to fight back. Every blow landed harder than it should’ve. He tried to use his strength, but it was like his muscles were wrapped in lead. He couldn’t stick to walls. Couldn't lift his arms after a while. His healing factor sputtered out, no longer enough to keep up. 

Peter didn’t beg.

Not at first.

But it didn’t matter.

A kick landed in his ribs. A sickening crack. Then another. And another. Peter tried to curl in on himself, instinct screaming to protect his head, his core—but his limbs wouldn’t respond.

“Not so fast now, are you, freak?” someone sneered above him.

Before he could gather his bearings, a boot pressed into his back, pinning him in place. One of the figures crouched down, grabbing him by the hair and yanking his head back, exposing his neck. The sharp coldness of metal was pressed against his skin as they held him still.

“Please…” Peter managed, his voice weak, his breath coming in shallow, panicked gasps. He had no idea what was happening—why it was happening. He couldn’t even remember how he had gotten here. His only focus was getting away. But his body wouldn’t listen.

The man holding him down spoke low, his voice gruff and impersonal. “Shut up, Spider. This is just the beginning. You shouldn’t have come here tonight.”

“Please... stop...” Peter begged again, but his voice was barely a whisper. His chest felt like it was on fire, and he could already feel the edges of his vision fading. He was slipping, losing himself, but he fought it.

The man who had been standing back moved forward, his gloved hand wrapping around a crowbar with practiced ease. The thick metal gleamed in the dim light of the alley, reflecting the faint glow of the distant streetlamps.

Peter, barely conscious, was still trying to move, trying to get some control over his body, but it was like his limbs weren’t his own. His vision was a blur of motion and color, his brain too fogged from the drugs to process everything happening around him. His heart hammered in his chest, fear locking his muscles in place. He wanted to fight, wanted to run, but it was impossible.

The man with the crowbar swung it with brutal precision, the heavy metal catching Peter’s side. The sickening crack of bone shattering echoed through the alley as Peter’s ribs splintered under the force. The impact was so hard it sent him onto his side, gasping for air. But his lungs struggled against the pain, every breath sharp and ragged. He could taste blood in his mouth, his vision spinning as his body shook with the aftershock of the blow.

The voice returned, lower this time, crouching near his ear. “Thought you were real smart. Thought you could sniff around our shipments, tail our runners, leave your little web-cameras all over our docks. Thought no one was watching.”

A gloved hand grabbed the back of his suit, dragging him upright just enough for another fist to crash into his jaw. It hit hard enough to dislocate Peter’s jaw. His head snapped sideways. He felt something in his neck wrench sharply, and then he was on the ground again, limp and half-conscious.

When he still didn’t break, still tried to move, they slammed his head into the concrete—over and over—until the world went dark and he forgot his own name.

And then—just as he was starting to fade—they stopped.

One of them muttered something Peter couldn’t make out. There was movement. The sound of clinking metal. Hissing.

Then something burned.

He screamed again—this time high and ragged—as something corrosive was splashed across his side, eating into the fabric of his suit, bubbling on his skin. The agony was instant and unbearable. He writhed, finally finding the strength to move—but only enough to roll over and crawl.

He didn’t even know where he was going. Just away.

His fingers scraped at the ground, glass and dirt biting into his palms. His legs dragged uselessly behind him, one twisting at the wrong angle.

Another voice laughed behind him.

“Let him crawl. Let him feel it.”

They didn’t chase him. They didn’t have to. He made it ten, maybe fifteen feet before he collapsed in the corner of the alley, gasping, twitching, the acrid stench of burned flesh and chemical smoke curling into his lungs. 

And then they dragged him back and his beatings began again.

The man lifted the crowbar again, swinging it down with no hesitation. Peter barely had time to brace himself before the metal slammed into his shoulder, dislocating it with a violent jerk. The pain that shot through him was a white-hot explosion that made him want to scream, but the sound died in his throat. His body went limp, unable to respond, unable to protect itself.

One of them moved closer, crouching down to grab Peter by the hair, yanking his head back to expose the soft, vulnerable skin of his throat. Peter’s eyes were unfocused, barely able to stay open as they looked up through a haze of pain and confusion.

The man with the crowbar spoke low, his voice cold and unfeeling, “Not so tough now, are you?”

Without warning, the cold clang of metal cut through the air, followed by a sharp whoosh as the crowbar swung down with brutal precision. The impact landed on the back of Peter’s skull with a sickening thud—hard enough to rattle his entire body, hard enough to shatter whatever fragments of consciousness he still had left.

His head snapped forward violently, and everything went dark.

——🕷️——

One of the men stepped forward, the sole of his boot pressing against Peter’s bloodied side. The boy didn’t move—his body limp, his breath faint and uneven—but the slow rise and fall of his chest gave him away.

“He’s still breathing,” the man said flatly, his voice devoid of emotion. “Hit him again. Wolfe wants him dead.”

The one with the crowbar didn’t hesitate.

He raised the weapon one last time, the blood already drying along its curved edge, and brought it down with a vicious swing. The sound it made when it connected was wet—sickening—a nauseating mix of flesh, bone, and metal.

The blow landed squarely across Peter’s already fractured face, slamming into his cheekbone and jaw with enough force to twist his head at an unnatural angle. The dislocated jaw tore further out of socket, a fresh gush of blood spilling from his mouth and nose. Teeth shattered. His body convulsed once before going terrifyingly still.

No twitching. No crawling. No breathing they could see.

The silence afterward was louder than the violence.

The man with the crowbar let out a breath, wiping sweat from his brow like he’d just finished a workout, not a brutal assault. He looked down at the ruined teenager—bloodied, broken, barely recognizable—and gave a satisfied nod.

Peter’s face was pressed into the gritty, filthy concrete, his cheek grinding against the hard surface, the grime mingling with the blood that soaked his skin. His jaw hung loosely at an unnatural angle, gaping open, blood and spittle dripping out, mixing with the dirt beneath him.

One of the men stepped forward again, silent but deliberate in his movements. He crouched beside Peter’s crumpled form, now lying in a growing pool of blood and grime. The boy hadn't moved since the last blow—his chest barely rising, if at all. 

With a grunt, he seized Peter’s limp body by the back of his ruined suit and dragged him upright. Peter’s head lolled forward, his weight dead in the man’s grip, a gruesome mockery of any life that had been there just hours before. Blood streamed down from the side of his face, matting his hair, dripping from his chin.

The man yanked Peter’s head back roughly, exposing the mangled side of his skull. The swelling was severe—bloodied, dented, the skin torn and bruised beyond recognition. The earlier blows had cracked something deep. A jagged wound near his temple still oozed, pulsing slowly with each faint beat of Peter’s failing heart.

The man leaned closer, his voice low and mocking. “You feel that, spider?” he hissed. “Or is there even anything left in there?”

After a moment, the man pulled his hand away, wiping Peter’s blood on the boys shredded suit like it was nothing more than oil or dirt. Then he let go.

Peter’s body dropped like dead weight, collapsing back to the alley floor with a wet, lifeless thud. His limbs sprawled awkwardly, unmoving, his face half-buried in the filth.

——🕷️——

They didn’t leave right away. Not even after they had taken a video of the gruesome crime scene, with instructions to send it to the news early the next morning.

Instead, the men stood over Peter’s motionless body, casting long shadows in the alley's dim light. One of them lit a cigarette with a calmness that made the violence feel even colder—like what they'd just done was routine. He exhaled slowly, watching the smoke drift over Peter’s ruined form.

“Jesus, is he still alive?” One of the men grunted.

“Barely,” another replied. “Kid’s tougher than he looks. Thought he’d be dead after the second hit.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the first said. “That brain’s jelly now. Won’t be walking. Won’t be talking. If he lives, it’ll be a miracle.”

“He was supposed to be smart,” one of them said. “Figured out the shipments. Tailed our men. Got close enough to make even Wolfe nervous.”

“Yeah, and now he’s gonna die in the dirt like a dog,” the man with the cigarette said, voice flat. “Lesson learned.” He threw his cigarette to the ground and stomped on it, the noise echoing loudly throughout the silent alley.

Peter twitched at the noise.

It was small—almost imperceptible—but his hand jerked once, a phantom reflex. A breath, ragged and wet, barely stirred the filth near his face.

The leader noticed. Walked over. Stared down at him for a long moment.

Then he crouched again, grabbed Peter by the back of the neck, and slammed his face into the concrete one more time. Hard.

The crack of bone echoed against the alley walls.

“Sleep, spider,” he muttered.

When he let go, Peter didn’t twitch again.

The leader stood, stepping over the boy’s body. “Let’s go.”

——🕷️——

Peter lay there for hours, broken and barely breathing, his brain swelling, his lungs struggling, his thoughts shattered into fragments of light and pain.

Somewhere, deep in the haze, he thought about May. About Tony. About Ned and MJ. About the way sunlight used to feel on his skin when he webbed through the city. And then… nothing.

Chapter Text

Present

The hum of the Quinjet’s engines roared overhead, washing the alley in a brief gust of wind and dust as it hovered just above the rooftops. The ladder dropped with a metallic clatter, and then the boots hit pavement—fast. Too fast. Bruce Banner didn’t wait for clearance, didn’t wait for an update, barely even waiting for the jet to fully land.

He was already running. Tony was fast on his heels.

“Where is he?” Tony barked, his voice sharp enough to cut steel. Bruce pointed ahead, the opening of the alley close.

Bruce slid into the alley first, medpack clutched in his white-knuckled hands. Tony and Helen Cho were close behind, flanked by two Tower medics with a stretcher and gear slung over their backs. Helen pointed to where the two shadowy figures were, but Tony didn’t need guidance—he saw Clint hunched in the filth, saw the shattered figure cradled against him, and the world just… snapped.

“No,” Tony breathed, the air rushing out of his lungs like he’d been punched in the gut. “No, no, no—”

He dropped to his knees beside Clint, grabbing onto Peter’s shoulder—gently, but urgently, his hand visibly shaking. “Jesus Christ, what the hell did they do to him?”

Clint didn’t answer right away. His mouth was a tight line, eyes hollowed out by shock and fury. “He was like this when I found him,” he said, voice tight. “They left him here… to die.”

Tony’s eyes swept Peter’s body—every injury like a punch to the chest. The crushed ribs, the exposed bone, the dislocated jaw, the burns, the blood-soaked curls. The fact that the kid was still breathing felt impossible.

Peter let out a wet, strangled sound—barely a groan—and Tony’s entire body jerked like it physically hurt him to hear it. His hands hovered over Peter, unsure where to touch that wouldn’t cause pain. Finally, he just rested a trembling palm on the boy’s hair, brushing the blood-matted curls back from his forehead.

“I’ve got you, kid,” he whispered, voice raw. “I’m here. I’m gonna fix this. You hear me?”

Helen dropped beside him, already assessing, already moving. “We need to stabilize his neck—Bruce, get the board. Clint, you need to move.”

Clint hesitated for a heartbeat before nodding, his face slack with grief. He helped Helen slip the neck brace on, eyes never leaving Peter. Bruce returned with the board and stretcher, setting it beside them with a grimace. The two medics stood at the entrance of the alley, armed now, making sure no one could get to the vulnerable teen while he was being cared for. 

Tony barely moved—still staring at Peter like he could will him back with just sheer force of will. His jaw clenched so tight it looked painful, his expression a cocktail of rage, horror, and guilt.

“We need to sedate him,” Helen said quietly. “His brain’s swelling. We don’t have much time.”

“Femur’s shattered,” Bruce muttered, already slicing Peter’s shredded suit with surgical scissors. “Dislocated arm. Multiple compound fractures. Jaw’s… Jesus, that’s dislocated and possibly fractured in two places. Skull trauma. He’s seizing—Clint, did you notice any—”

“He twitched a few times,” Clint rasped. “I wasn’t sure if it was conscious or reflex.” Bruce handed Clint a bundle of cloth and a metal splint, “wrap his arm, do the best you can. If his healing factor decides to kick back in, I don’t want his bones to heal wrong.”

Clint swallowed hard and took the supplies Bruce handed him—his fingers still sticky with blood, trembling from adrenaline and the raw ache in his chest. The arm in question was the one outstretched in front of Peter’s body, mangled at the wrist and elbow, the fingers still half-curled like they’d tried to dig him free from death itself.

Clint winced as he looked at it. “Sorry, kid,” he murmured. “This is gonna suck.”

He slid one hand beneath Peter’s arm to support it, the other guiding the splint into place. The moment he touched the limb, Peter flinched.

Not just a twitch—this time it was a full-body jerk, weak and instinctive, like a wounded animal pulling away from a fire.

“Shit,” Clint muttered, freezing.

Peter let out a faint, broken moan. His head lolled slightly, his lips parting with a rasp of air that barely counted as sound. His good eye fluttered—just for a second—then squeezed shut in pain. The reaction was sluggish, but it was there. Conscious or not, Peter felt that.

“Fuck, I know, kid.” Clint said, “I have to.” 

Peter didn’t hear him though, his eyes already closed again, face lax.

Helen pressed two fingers to Peter’s neck. “Pulse is thready, BP’s in the basement. We need to intubate. Now. We don’t have time to wait for a full scan—he’s aspirating.”

Bruce pulled out the portable intubation kit and a bag valve mask. Helen worked with terrifying efficiency, slipping the tube down Peter’s throat while Bruce held his neck steady, blood slicking his gloves.

“Push 5ccs ketamine, 2ccs midazolam, and 2ccs of the enhanced sedative we made for him,” Helen ordered. “Keep him under. He’s going to feel everything if we don’t. Clint, Tony, get him on the board.”

Clint moved but Tony didn’t. 

He stood frozen, hands limp at his sides, eyes locked on Peter’s ruined body. Blood soaked through the shredded fabric of the kid’s— *his* kid’s— suit, pooling beneath him, sticky and dark. His face—swollen, broken, slack—was barely recognizable. And Tony… he couldn’t breathe. His chest was tight, lungs like they’d been squeezed in a vice.

Helen turned her head sharply, “Tony! Now!” She barked.

The shout cut through his fog. He flinched—literally jolted like he’d been slapped—and his gaze snapped to her. For half a second, his expression was raw—shattered, like a man who’d been gutted from the inside out. Then something shifted. He sucked in a breath through his teeth, clenched his jaw, and moved.

As Bruce administered the meds, Tony and Clint gently rolled Peter onto the board. A strangled cry tore from Peter’s throat—low and pitiful—and Tony flinched like it was a gunshot.

“I know, kid, I know,” Tony murmured, crouching beside him again, gripping Peter’s good(ish) hand—careful not to squeeze too tight. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known. I should’ve been there.”

Bruce shot him a sharp look. “This isn’t your fault, Tony.”

“The hell it isn’t,” Tony snapped, but his voice broke halfway through. He turned back to Peter, softer now. “We’re getting you home. You’re gonna be okay. I swear to God, you’re gonna wake up, and we’ll get through this. Together.”

The team lifted Peter as carefully as they could. His limbs hung limp, one arm grotesquely angled despite the splint that had been hastily applied. A stabilizer brace was fitted over his torso to prevent further rib collapse. Blood still leaked from his ear and nose, but his chest moved with more regularity now under the guidance of the intubation. Peter’s blood still clung to Tony’s hands. He didn’t bother wiping it off. 

They were quick to arrive back at the Quinjet, with the two armed medics making sure they were covered from any potential threats.

As the jet’s doors closed behind them, and the medical monitors lit up with alarming vitals, Tony sat beside the stretcher and never looked away.

Helen moved to the bio-bed mid-jet and began hooking Peter to full monitoring. Blood transfusions started. Sensors beeped erratically, struggling to find a rhythm. The small compartment smelled of antiseptic, ozone, and blood.

And when Peter seized mid-flight, convulsing so hard the straps rattled, Tony lost it.

“Get him stable!” Tony shouted, panicking. “Now!”

Helen and Bruce moved fast, working as a team—but Tony hovered at Peter’s side, gripping his unbroken hand with a desperation that left no room for doubt.

“You stay with me, Peter,” Tony hissed through gritted teeth. “You don’t get to quit now. Not after what they did. You survive this, and I will burn the world to find the bastards who touched you. You hear me?”

Peter didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

The Quinjet rocketed toward the Tower. Time moved in slow, suspended agony—every second stretched by the fear that Peter might flatline before they touched down.

But he didn’t.

He held on.

Barely.

Chapter Text

The Quinjet’s landing gear screamed against the pad outside the Tower, a high-pitched screech drowned by the whirl of medical chaos inside. The rear ramp dropped before they’d even fully touched down, and the med team was already in motion.

“Move, move, move!” Helen barked as she and two assistants maneuvered Peter’s stretcher down the ramp, IVs swinging, monitors beeping erratically. The boy hadn’t made a sound since the seizure mid-flight—too far under, too far gone. His skin was pale and clammy, the blue of oxygen starvation creeping up his lips despite the mask feeding him air. His chest rose, barely. The team rushed into the Tower, heading quickly towards the medical bay.

“Get him to surgical!” Helen snapped as they wheeled him inside. “Vitals unstable. Prep OR-3. I want neuro and trauma on standby—now!”

Tony stopped and stood at the entrance to medbay, staring after the stretcher as it disappeared behind a wall of white coats and surgical lights. He was silent, standing with a look carved from stone, shoulders stiff, fists clenched so tight his fingers ached inside the gloves.

Clint turned to him, panting slightly from the rush. “Come on,” he said, voice quiet. “They’re going to do everything they can. You should be in there.”

But Tony didn’t move.

“I said come on,” Clint tried again, firmer now. He stepped in front of him. “You don’t get to disappear right now.”

Tony didn’t even look at him.

His jaw was set, eyes still locked on where the doors had slammed shut behind Peter and the surgical team. His voice, when it came, was cold and brittle.

“I have to.”

Clint narrowed his eyes. “Bullshit.”

Tony’s head finally turned. His face was pale, drawn, and when he spoke again, the words came out like a crack in armor. “If I stay up here and watch him die, I’ll fall apart. And if I fall apart, I can’t fix this. I won’t be useless right now.”

Before Clint could argue again, Tony was already striding away—shoulders rigid, steps purposeful, but it was the kind of purpose that came from barely holding yourself together. He vanished through the lower-level doors, down toward his workshop.

——🕷️——

It was only 15 minutes later when hell broke loose once more.

Tony sat silently in his workshop. A screen was pulled up in front of him and his face was grim. Peter’s suit logs flashed on the screen. He worked furiously but still couldn’t figure out why the suit hadn’t sent any information during or after the attack. Tony was doing the best he could to extract anything from it– audio logs, biometric data, GPS, and timestamps of when Peter’s vitals dropped. Despite his best efforts at recovering the data, Peter’s suit had seemingly recorded little to nothing, leaving Tony stumped and frustrated. 

The quiet of the workshop was shattered by the sound of hurried footsteps pounding down the hall. Tony barely had time to process it before Sam Wilson appeared in the doorway, slightly out of breath, his expression grim.

“Tony, fuck, turn on the news.”

Tony’s stomach dropped. He hesitated before grabbing the remote and switching on the nearest screen.

The second the broadcast came into view, Tony’s heart stopped.

Onscreen, a grainy, shaky video played. 3 figures stood together in a dark, abandoned alley, their faces twisted in cruel amusement. Tony’s heart skipped a beat, he recognized the alleyway. The same alley they had found Peter in. One of the men stepped forward and Tony assumed he was the leader.

“Stark,” the man said, voice casual but biting. “I’m guessing you’ll see this eventually. Probably tearing your fancy tower apart trying to figure out what happened to your little protégé.”

Tony’s hands curled into fists at his sides.

“Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?” He scoffed, a smirk pulling at his lips. “He’s dead.”

Then, the camera cut to an image—one that made Tony’s breath catch in his throat.

It was Peter, barely recognizable under the bruises, his suit torn and soaked in blood. His body was limp, tossed onto the concrete ground like garbage. The timestamp in the corner suggested it was from before they had found him, but to the rest of the world? It looked like proof.

The screen shifted back to the man. “Consider this a warning, Avengers,” another voice sneered, “keep your noses out of our business.”

Tony felt like the ground had been ripped out from under him. His vision blurred at the edges, his chest tightening with something between rage and sheer panic.

And then his phone buzzed.

He pulled it out with shaking hands, his gut twisting violently when he saw the name.

May.

His breath caught as he opened the message.

May: Tony, please tell me this isn’t true. Please tell me Peter is okay. I need to know. Please.

Tony clenched his jaw, his grip tightening around the phone until his knuckles turned white.

His fingers trembled as he typed out his response.

He’s alive. I’ll send Happy to get you and bring you to the tower.

He barely hit send before lowering the phone, his grip so tight his hand ached. Whoever these guys were, they had just declared war. His eyes locked back onto the monitor in front of him, a lump in his throat.

Sam exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face. “Shit, man. They’re gonna have the whole damn city believing he’s dead.”

Tony forced himself to breathe, to think, but his pulse was pounding in his ears. “We’re shutting this down now.” His voice was low, dangerous. “We find them. We make them pay. I want every camera footage pulled from the docks.”

Steve and Natasha entered the room, both having seen the news report. Natasha’s expression was unreadable, but Steve’s was grim.

“We need to be smart about this,” Steve said, though his tone had an edge to it. “They want to bait us into acting recklessly.”

Tony finally tore his gaze away from the monitor tracking, his eyes burning with barely restrained fury. “Yeah? Well, congratulations to them, because I am reckless when someone hurts my kid.”

Natasha’s gaze flickered to the monitor before looking back at Tony, “if we act recklessly, we put ourselves into more danger. We run the risk of scaring them into hiding.”

Tony forced in a breath through his nose. He couldn’t lose control. Not now. Not when Peter still needed him and his attackers were still out there.

His phone buzzed again—Happy, confirming that he was on his way to pick up May.

Tony walked out of the workshop, his fists clenched at his sides, his whole body radiating barely contained fury. The other Avengers followed, their expressions tense. No one said a word as they entered the living room, but the air was heavy with anticipation.

The news broadcast was on in the living room, playing in the background, the headline flashing across the screen:

"SPIDER-MAN DEAD? NEW ORGANIZATION CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY"

Tony snatched the remote and shut off the TV with a sharp click before turning to face the team. His chest rose and fell with ragged breaths as he fought to keep himself from completely losing it.

His eyes flicked to each of them, sharp and unforgiving.

“They just put a damn target on their backs.”

Steve crossed his arms. “We need to be smart, Tony.”

Tony turned on him, eyes blazing. “No, Steve. What we need is to find them now. I am not waiting. I am not sitting around twiddling my thumbs while May freaks out, while Peter is fighting for his life, and while those bastards celebrate, thinking they’ve won.”

Natasha spoke next, her voice calm but firm. “Clint’s already tracking them. We’ll have a location soon.”

“Not soon enough.” Tony ran a hand through his hair, pacing like a caged animal. His anger wasn’t just anger—it was personal. The men hadn’t just hurt Peter. They had humiliated him. They had taken their time breaking him. And now they were turning it into some twisted game for the world to see.

Steve’s voice was calm but there was a tightness to it as he spoke. “Tony, I get it. I do. But rushing in without a plan? That’s exactly what they want us to do. We go in blind, more people get hurt.”

Tony spun, shoving his finger in Steve’s face, “you don’t get it. You weren’t in that alley, Steve.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t care—“

Tony cut him off, voice rising, “he was dying. Lying there in his own blood, crushed and broken and barely breathing.” His voice cracked slightly, ”you weren’t there. You didn’t see what they did to him. You didn’t hear the sounds he made. You didn’t see his face.

“Tony, I know you’re hurting, but—“ this time it was Sam, trying to calm the situation.

“No. No, you don’t. Because if you did, you two wouldn’t be standing there asking me to be careful. Careful is what got him nearly killed in the first place.”

Tony swallowed, hard. Peter uncovered something dangerous—something that made him a target. But instead of sounding the alarm, he kept it to himself. He didn’t want Tony to worry. He didn’t want May to panic. He thought he could handle it. Being cautious. Being safe. Steve’s voice pulled him back out of his thoughts.

“And charging in reckless will only make it worse. What happens if we lose someone else? What happens if they’re expecting you to come in guns blazing?” Steve was clearly growing irritated now, his voice rising to match Tony’s. “We need to approach cautiously, with a smart strategy. We can’t run the risk of someone else getting hurt”

“Oh, thank you, Captain America, for the strategy lecture. Maybe you can tell that to May when she asks me why Peter’s not waking up. Or better yet—tell her we’re going to wait while his attackers roam free”, He snarled back.

“Both of you stop it,” Natasha snapped before Steve could reply. “Steve’s right—we need a plan. But standing here arguing about it while the trail goes cold? That’s not a plan. That’s wasting time.”

Tony fell silent, clearly still angry, but didn’t push it any more. Nat was right.

Sam leaned against the couch, arms crossed. “Right now, we need to control the narrative. The whole city thinks Spider-Man’s dead.”

“Then we fix it,” Tony snapped. “I’ll handle the press. Damage control, whatever.”

Rhodes, who had been silently watching the security feeds as they argued, let out a low whistle. “Tones, there’s press outside. Like… a lot.”

Tony’s head snapped toward him. “Define a lot.”

Rhodes turned the screen toward them. The front entrance of the compound was completely swarmed—reporters, news vans, cameras flashing, microphones being shoved at the gates. Some people held signs. Others were shouting. The news of Spider-Man’s so-called death had spread like wildfire, and now the whole damn city wanted answers.

Tony exhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Of course. Because today wasn’t already a giant dumpster fire.”

Steve frowned at the screen. “They want confirmation.”

“They want a damn spectacle is what they want,” Tony muttered. He could already imagine the questions: Is Spider-Man really dead? Who’s responsible? What are the Avengers going to do?

“Do we address it?” Natasha asked.

Tony ran a hand through his hair. “If we don’t, rumors get worse. If we do, and we say the wrong thing, it still gets worse.”

“We can’t say Peter’s alive,” Natasha pointed out. “Not yet. Not when they still think they won.”

“Yeah, well, we also can’t let the world think he’s dead,” Sam countered. “The second people believe that, the city’s gonna fall apart. You know how much he means to them.”

Tony clenched his jaw. The weight of the decision pressed down on him. The entire city was looking to them for an answer, and somewhere out there, Peter’s attackers were watching—probably laughing, waiting for the Avengers to crumble.

Finally, Tony exhaled. “I’ll handle it.”

Steve gave him a measured look. “Are you sure you’re in the right headspace for this?”

Tony turned to him, eyes cold. “No. But I’m the only one who can.”

Without waiting for an argument, he straightened his jacket, squared his shoulders, and headed for the front doors.

Time to put on a show.

Chapter Text

The moment Tony Stark stepped outside, the world erupted.

Noise hit him like a blast—reporters shouting over one another, camera shutters snapping in rapid-fire bursts, flashes igniting the afternoon light into something jagged and cruel. Flashes blinded him from every angle, the glare of a city desperate for answers. Microphones thrust toward him like weapons, questions fired like bullets.

“Mr. Stark! Is it true that Spider-Man is dead?”

“Was this a targeted attack?”

“Can you confirm the identity of the attackers?”

“What’s the Avengers’ response?”

Tony didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. He didn’t give them a damn inch.  He didn’t go to the center podium immediately. He just stood there in front of the crowd for a few long seconds, staring them down like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to speak or throw the entire setup off the balcony.  

Finally, he stepped forward.  

FRIDAY had already deployed the podium, its slick metal surface gleaming under the press lights. A dozen microphones were clustered at the top like vultures waiting for a carcass.

Every step was calculated—measured, not confident. Controlled. Like he was holding himself together with duct tape and stubbornness.

Tony looked out over the sea of cameras and faces, all of them waiting to devour whatever came out of his mouth. They weren’t here for answers. They were here for spectacle.

He spoke after a moment. No greetings. No condolences.  

Just:  

“You people really love a body, don’t you?” 

That quieted the crowd quickly. 

He took a breath. Not deep. Not cleansing. Just enough to keep the edge out of his voice. And then he started. No opening statement. No fake smile. No deflection.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was low and controlled, each word measured like he was building a bomb and daring someone to light the fuse.

“You see a couple of leaked images, a bit of shaky footage, and you’re already writing the obituaries. Broadcasting them. Debating them. You vultures had your headlines ready before he was even in surgery.”  

The cameras still clicked, but the questions quieted. They were listening now.  

“You want to know if he’s dead?” Tony’s voice was quieter, but no less cutting. “You want me to confirm it? Put it in ink for you?”

He stared down the front line of reporters.

“You don’t give a damn about what he’s going through. You want the story. You want to slap a picture of his broken body on your homepage and rack up the views.”  

He let that hang in the air, bitter and sharp.  

“Spider-Man,” he said, evenly, “is not some icon for you to dissect.”

No one spoke. The crowd was still. 

“Here’s what you get,” he continued. His gaze swept across the mob of reporters with the kind of look that could cut metal. “Spider-Man was targeted. Not by accident. Not by some random street thug. He was hunted. And you’re all out here digging for gossip while he’s fighting for his life.”

A few reporters lowered their mics. Others looked unsure now, like they hadn’t expected the rawness in his voice. Like they were realizing this wasn’t the usual press circus.

“He’s not your headline. He’s not your conspiracy theory. And he’s not a goddamn martyr. Spider-Man was never about the suit. Or the name. Or the powers. His humanity is not something you get to take from him just because he’s on a table instead of a rooftop.”

The silence that followed wasn’t respectful—it was tense. Uncomfortable. Like everyone was holding their breath and no one wanted to be the first to exhale.

Tony’s gaze moved slowly across the crowd. He wasn’t angry—not on the surface. But the tension in his posture told a different story. The subtle tic in his jaw. The way his thumb twitched in his pocket.

“There’s a video going around. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Real cinematic stuff. Guys in masks, grainy footage, real horror movie vibes.”

His voice dipped, just a little. Enough to suggest that under the sarcasm, something colder simmered.

“They want you afraid,” Tony continued, voice hardening. “They want you to think he’s gone. That the city’s protector is off the board. They want to scare you into silence. Submission. They want you all to panic. They want us to do something stupid.”

He paused. Let that sink in.

“Let me be clear,” Tony said, voice low, clipped, “this is not over. Spider-man is not dead. My team and I are working on tracking down Spider-mans attackers and will not rest until they are found.”

Tony paused and looked into the nearest camera. He had no doubt they were watching. “These people think they got away with it. They think leaving Spider-man in the gutter was a win. We are not going to play nice with cowards who beat a hero half to death and broadcast it like it’s a game.”

He turned back to the crowd, “as for everyone gathered here, I want you all off of this property within the hour. This circus ends now.”

And then, without another word, he turned on his heel and walked back toward the Tower, the weight of the world on his shoulders and fire in his veins. The crowd erupted behind him—questions, shouts, flashes—but Tony Stark didn’t look back.

No questions. No clarifications. Just the click of his boots on the pavement and the heavy slam of the Tower doors behind him.  

Let the world spin on rumors. Tony Stark didn’t care.  

Not until Peter woke up.

——🕷️——

As Tony stepped back inside the compound, the cold air of the hallway did little to calm the fire in his chest. His pulse thundered in his ears. He took a breath—then another—but it wasn’t enough to steady the storm inside.

Then a voice cut through the silence, jagged and raw.

“Stark, where the fuck is my nephew?”

He stopped dead.

May.

She was storming down the corridor toward him, her eyes blazing. Her face was pale, lips trembling, but her rage burned hot enough to sear through everything in its path. She wasn’t crying—but her eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with unshed tears. Her fear had twisted into fury, and now it was aimed squarely at him. She wasn’t just angry—she was terrified, and the fear had ignited something fiercer in her.

Tony turned to face her fully. He didn’t flinch. He couldn’t. He’d known this was coming, dreaded it. He didn’t know what would break him first—May’s grief or his own guilt—but either way, it was here now. And it was too late to brace for impact.

He met her eyes, voice quiet but steady. “May, I—”

“Don’t.” The word cracked like a whip. “Don’t you dare give me some half-assed line. I’ve seen the video. I’ve seen what they did to him—how they left him. I don’t care what you were doing, or what mission you had, or what excuses you think will fix this. I don’t care about damage control or press briefings or whatever the hell you’ve got lined up. I want to know where Peter is.”

Her voice trembled at the end, just for a second, betraying the raw, unrelenting terror behind her rage. Tony swallowed hard. He wanted to comfort her. Wanted to take it all back. But there was no comfort he could give—not yet. Not when Peter’s blood was still being scrubbed off the floor of some alley. Not when the kid was still under a knife.

He took a step toward her. “He’s alive,” he said softly. “He’s hurt… badly. But we’ve got the best team working on him. He’s in surgery now. We’re keeping him stable.”

May’s breath hitched and for one heartbeat, the anger slipped. Relief bled through the cracks—but it didn’t last.

“Stable?” she spat. “You think that’s enough? That I’m supposed to just be grateful because he’s stable after being beaten half to death? That’s my boy, Tony. My everything. And you’re telling me he’s ‘stable’ like that’s some kind of victory? He shouldn’t have been put in that position in the first place!”

Tony let the weight of her words settle in. He didn’t speak immediately, knowing there was nothing he could say to make this right—not yet.

Her voice shook. “You said he’d be safe.”

Tony’s breath caught in his throat. That word. That promise.

Safe.

The word rang in his ears like a funeral bell.

May stared at him, eyes burning. “You were supposed to keep him safe.”

Tony froze.

He had prepared himself for her anger. For the accusations. For the pain. But hearing it out loud—hearing it from her—hit him harder than he thought possible.

Because she was right.

His tech had failed. It had failed to alert him of Peter’s condition, failed to alert him that Peter Parker was bleeding out in some forgotten alleyway.

He had promised himself, promised her, that Peter would be safe. That under his watch, nothing like this would happen. And yet, Peter was lying in surgery, battered and broken, because Tony hadn’t been there when it mattered most.

His throat tightened. His usual defenses, the sarcasm, the quick wit, all of it—gone. He had nothing to say.

“I trusted you,” she said, quieter now, but no less fierce. “I let him go with you. I let him be a part of this insanity because you looked me in the eye and told me you’d protect him.”

She was echoing the same words he’d been repeating in his own head since the moment he saw Peter’s broken body.

You were supposed to keep him safe.

He didn’t have a response. The usual armor—snark, bravado, sharp words and sharp wit—was gone. Stripped away by the weight of the truth. His chest tightened, his throat burning, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

He had failed.

Not just Peter. But her.

May turned away, wiping at her face with a trembling hand. “You know the worst part? Finding out what happened over a damn news broadcast.”

She was crying now—silent tears cutting clean tracks down her face, and still, she didn’t wipe them away. “Do you know what it’s like to sit in a car, holding your breath the whole ride because you don’t know if you’re about to see your kid dead on a table?”

He looked at her—really looked—and saw it. The pain. The rage just barely being kept in check. And underneath all of it, the grief that mirrored his own.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like that,” he said finally, his voice low, rough at the edges. “We were trying to keep it quiet. Control the leak. Buy time.”

He ran a hand down his face, exhausted in a way that went deeper than physical. “I thought we had time. I thought we could keep it contained long enough for you to hear it from me. Or… from him, when he woke up.”

A beat passed. His hands curled into fists at his sides.

“I fucked up,” Tony admitted. “There’s no excuse. You should’ve known first. You deserved to know first.”

May shook her head. Not with disgust—but with something quieter. Sadder.

“I trusted you like family,” she whispered. “Because Peter trusted you like family. And now he’s in there fighting for his life, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to hear his voice again.”

She turned then, without waiting for a reply, and began walking toward the medbay. Her footsteps were sharp. Determined. Breaking through the stillness like a drumbeat of grief and fury.

Tony didn’t move.

He couldn’t.

——🕷️——

It was eight hours after Peter had been brought to the Tower before he was finally out of surgery.

May sat on the floor in the far corner of the medbay’s private waiting room. She hadn’t moved in hours. Her back was against the cold wall, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around them like if she let go, she might unravel completely. Her eyes were dry now—too dry. She had cried until there was nothing left, and now there was just this dull, echoing nothingness in her chest. The sterile air smelled like bleach and blood and fear. She barely noticed.

Bruce stepped inside, exhaustion clinging to him like a second skin. He looked wrecked. Pale. Older than he had any right to look. His scrubs were stained with things she didn’t want to think about. His hands—always steady, always sure—were trembling slightly at his sides. 

He just walked over and slowly sank down beside her, his back hitting the wall with a quiet thud. His legs stretched out, shoulders slouched, and for a long moment, they just sat there in the kind of silence that feels like a scream muffled under water.

Finally, May spoke. Her voice was hoarse, hollow. “How bad is it?”

Bruce didn’t answer right away. He stared straight ahead, then finally let out a long breath. He exhaled slowly, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes before letting them fall to his lap.

“He has three broken ribs—one of them punctured a lung. Dislocated shoulder. Fractured orbital bone. Skull fracture, brain swelling. Severe concussion. Internal bleeding. Multiple lacerations, some deep enough we had to close them in layers. His right wrist is shattered. His left knee is dislocated. He has chemical burns on his back and legs. Seizures started during surgery. That’s just some of it. He’s—” Bruce swallowed hard. “He’s in bad shape, May.”

“We lost him… multiple times on the table. His heart stopped twice.” His voice cracked just a little. “We’ve put him into a medically induced coma. It’s the only shot we have at giving his brain a chance to heal without triggering more seizures. He’s stable—for now. That’s the best we can do.”

Stable. The word felt like a cruel joke.

May leaned her head back against the wall, eyes closed. 

May’s breath hitched. But she didn’t cry. Not yet. She just leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, like maybe if she stayed still enough, she wouldn’t fall apart. There was nothing left inside her except a hollow ache and the growing sense that her world was slipping out from under her, inch by inch.

“Do you want to see him?” Bruce asked softly, his voice barely audible beneath the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant echo of footsteps in the hallway.

May didn’t answer right away. Her eyes were glassy, locked on a spot across the room that only she could see. It was like she was afraid that if she moved, if she stood, everything would become real.

“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered, her voice raw.

Bruce nodded slowly. “You don’t have to,” he said. “But he’d want you there.”

That did something to her. Her jaw tensed. Her throat worked around a silent sob she refused to let out. She pressed her hand to her mouth again, trying to breathe without breaking.

After a long moment, she nodded. Barely. Like even that small movement might unravel her.

Bruce stood first. He offered his hand, and when she took it, her grip was cold and shaky. He didn’t let go, not once, as they walked side by side down the corridor. There was no talking. Just the quiet shuffle of footsteps, and the sense that the world had stopped spinning for everyone except them.

The ICU was dim—too dim. As if light would be too cruel a thing in this place. Machines beeped in slow, steady rhythms. The kind of rhythm that should have been comforting. It wasn’t.

Peter looked… wrong.

Too still. Too quiet. Like his body was there, but the rest of him hadn’t caught up yet.

His face was swollen and bruised, one eye purpled shut, his lip split and stitched. There were bandages wrapped around his skull, gauze covering his chest, wires climbing from his skin like vines desperately trying to hold him together. The ventilator pushed and pulled, hissing with every breath it forced into his lungs. And that’s just what May could see. She didn’t want to know what lay under the blanket that covered her nephew.

He looked like a ghost of himself. Not the kid who tripped over his own feet chasing after Sam with a Nerf gun. Not the kid who laughed too loud and talked too fast and never stopped moving.

He wasn’t moving.

He wasn’t fighting.

And Peter always fought.

May staggered. Her hand flew out to catch the railing at the foot of the bed, knuckles white. Bruce caught her by the elbow, steadying her, guiding her to the chair beside Peter’s bed. She sank into it like her bones had finally given up holding her up.

She didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

She just stared.

Her hand covered her mouth again, but this time it didn’t stop the sound—a small, broken sob, barely more than a breath.

She reached for Peter’s hand like it might burn her. Her fingers brushed the back of his—bandaged, bruised, but still warm. Still here.

“Hey, baby…” Her voice cracked. She blinked hard, shaking her head like that might wake her up from all this. “I’m here.”

She didn’t let go. She wouldn’t.

Even if he didn’t squeeze back. Even if he didn’t hear her.

She held his hand like it was the only thing keeping her from drowning.

And then something in her changed.

Her shoulders straightened. Her jaw locked. Her voice didn’t tremble this time when she spoke—didn’t break or falter. It was rigid. Quiet. Steeled in the way only someone who’s lost everything can be.

“Bring Tony up here,” she said.

Not a request.

Not a question.

A command.

Bruce hesitated. “May—”

She turned her head, slowly. Her eyes were wet, yes—but they were fire beneath the water.

She wanted answers.

“I said bring him up.”

Chapter Text

Bruce didn’t argue again. He just nodded, quiet and grim, and left the room with the soft whoosh of the door behind him.

May stayed like a soldier at a post, one hand still wrapped tightly around Peter’s. She brushed her thumb along his knuckles, avoiding the bruises and the IV lines. She whispered to him now and then—soft things, soothing things, half-prayers and half-promises. 

She didn’t turn as the door opened again some minutes later.

——🕷️——

Bruce and Tony walked in silence, footsteps echoing softly down the sterile corridor of the medbay. The lights overhead cast a pale, clinical glow, and every beep from a distant machine seemed to echo like a ticking clock. 

As they neared Peter’s room, Bruce suddenly reached out, placing a gentle hand on Tony’s arm to stop him.

“Tony,” Bruce said, voice low and calm, “It’s not your fault.”

Tony turned, jaw tight. “Yes it is.”

Bruce’s expression didn’t waver. He didn’t back off, but his voice stayed calm. “The kid snuck out. Didn’t call for backup. Didn’t tell anyone where he was going. That’s not on you.”

Tony exhaled sharply through his nose, eyes flicking toward the floor before snapping back up to Bruce. “Banner, my tech failed. His suit, his tracker, the biometric alerts—I designed all of it to protect him. It was supposed to warn me. To warn someone.” His voice cracked. “And it didn’t.”

“Tony, stop pretending like you could’ve fixed it with another piece of tech.”

“I should have fixed it with another piece of tech,” Tony snapped, voice rising. “His suit? His tracker? Every goddamn failsafe I’ve built in to keep him alive—all of it went dark like someone hit the off switch.” He paused, jaw clenched, voice dropping. “I don’t even know if he tried to call for help. Or if he just… laid there.”  

“Tony–”

“I was the one who promised her,” he interrupted, voice low and bitter. “May. I told her I’d keep him safe. That I’d look after him. You remember what she said when she let him come here? ‘Don’t make me bury him.’ And now he’s in there with a machine breathing for him and half his skull stitched back together.”

Bruce stepped in closer. “Don’t do that. Don’t rewrite the story because you’re angry and hurting. You’ve saved that kid more times than I can count. He looks up to you, Tony. You’re the reason he’s still alive after everything that’s already tried to take him out.”

Tony’s mouth opened like he might argue—but nothing came out. The fight was draining out of him. His hands dropped uselessly to his sides.

“It doesn’t matter. May’s right. I didn’t do enough.”

“Tony, no one but yourself is blaming you for this. May? May’s scared. She’s blaming you because she needs someone to take her emotions out on.” Bruce stared at Tony, “give her time to calm down, to come to her senses. We had no idea that Peter was sneaking out. She’s just scared.”

“I should’ve known something was off,” Tony muttered. “I should’ve caught it before he even left the building.”

Bruce was quiet for a moment, then said, “You’ve built suits that can withstand nukes, AI that can outthink the Pentagon, tech that can monitor half the planet—but you can’t account for a scared, stubborn teenager with a hero complex who’s used to handling things on his own.”

Tony let out a quiet but heavy sigh, looking at Bruce.

Bruce gave him a long look. Then he stepped back and motioned toward the door. “He’s in there. He’s not gone. And he needs you to show up now, not disappear into guilt.”

Tony stared at the door for a long beat.

Then he nodded, just once. And pushed it open.

The door to Peter’s ICU room opened with a soft hiss, and the moment it did, everything else—his thoughts, his excuses, his endless loop of self-blame—fell silent.

He stepped inside the room like a man walking into a court sentencing. His face was drawn tight, mouth pressed into a thin line. His usual presence—loud, commanding, magnetic—was gone. In its place was a man laid bare. A man standing in the ruins of something he had promised to protect.

Tony had seen a lot of injuries in his life. Shrapnel tearing through bodies. Burn wounds, broken bones, blood on metal floors. He’d seen battlefields littered with lives cut short.

But he wasn’t ready for this.

Peter looked small.

So still. Too still. Swallowed up by the machines and the wires and the antiseptic haze of a room that didn’t feel like it was meant for a kid. Tubes in his nose, IVs in both arms, a ventilator pushing and pulling his lungs like a mechanical ghost of breath. His face—Jesus, his face—was swollen, bruised, stitched across the hairline, with one eye purpled shut and a cut running from his temple down to his jaw.

Tony’s legs locked up just past the threshold. He didn’t move. He couldn’t. He felt Bruce’s hand on his shoulder.

Tony had seen Peter injured before—after fights, after missions gone sideways. But he’d always bounced back. Always cracked a joke. Always brushed it off with a sheepish grin and a “Guess I overdid it, huh, Mr. Stark?”

Not this time.

There was no voice. No grin. No spark.

Tony’s breath caught, sharp and jagged in his throat. He took a slow step forward, like any sudden movement might shatter the room. Or him.

May turned and his eyes caught hers. She didn’t scream this time. She didn’t cry. She just looked at him—really looked—and for a moment, neither of them spoke.

“I didn’t bring you up here to scream,” May started. “I’ve done that already. I’ve cursed your name. I’ve blamed you, because you were supposed to be the one person I could count on in all this insanity. You were the one who brought him into it.”

“I know,” Tony said. The words scraped out like gravel. “You’re right.”

May shook her head slowly, almost like it hurt to do it. “Do you?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“I have questions,” she said. “And I need you to be honest with me, Stark. No spin. No armor. No press release version.”

He lifted his head, eyes bloodshot. “Anything.”

May took a moment, gearing herself up for what was going to be a hard conversation. She stared at Tony like she could burn the truth out of him. Like she needed to. 

“Do you know who did this to him?” Her voice cracked—just once—but the fire was still there beneath it. 

Tony swallowed hard. “We have leads,” he said quietly. “We think it was someone tied to a weapons ring he uncovered—he was working a lead, off a hunch. We didn’t know he was that close to something. Clint and Romanoff are out tracking down any leads we’ve gotten so far.”

“You didn’t know.” May echoed it like it was poison in her mouth. “Why wasn’t someone with him? Why was he alone?”

Tony looked down, jaw tight. “He snuck out. We didn’t catch it in time.”

May’s breath hitched, sharp and ragged. Her shoulders squared, spine stiff with the strain of holding herself together. “And that’s it?” she asked, but her voice wasn’t weak—it trembled with fury, not fragility. “He gets jumped, tortured, left in an alley like garbage—and no one even realized he was gone until hours later? Why didn’t I get a call the second he went missing? Why did I have to be told he was in surgery after he almost died on your table?”

Tony flinched like the words had claws. They sank in deep, and he didn’t try to dodge them. He couldn’t. He looked like she’d slapped him—maybe she had. Just not with hands.

“I didn’t want to call you until I knew he’d…” His voice was thin, frayed around the edges. “Until I knew he was alive. I didn’t want to put you through that unless—” He broke off, breath catching. “Unless I had to.”

May’s face crumpled then, a slow collapse—like the scaffolding of her anger couldn’t hold up the weight of her grief anymore. Her armor buckled. But only for a second.

“You had to,” she whispered, voice stripped bare. “The moment he was missing, you had to. I should’ve been there. Not after. Then.”

Silence settled between them, thick and suffocating, heavy with everything they couldn’t fix. The soft, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor felt too loud now. The hiss of the ventilator was a cruel reminder that Peter wasn’t breathing on his own. Machines were doing it for him.

May didn’t look at Tony when she spoke again. Her eyes were locked on Peter’s face—pale, swollen, almost unrecognizable beneath the bruises and bandages. She watched his eyelashes, waiting for the smallest flicker. Her fingers hovered just above his skin like she was afraid she might break him if she touched too hard.

“Did he call for help?” Her voice was quiet now, but cold—sharp enough to cut. “Did he try to reach you?”

Tony felt the breath catch in his throat again. He wanted to lie. God, he wanted to say yes. That they got there fast. That Peter wasn’t alone.

But he couldn’t.

He shook his head. “His comm was disabled. We think they took it—or smashed it. FRIDAY didn’t pick up anything. No calls. No signals. Nothing.”

“Nothing,” May echoed, the word flat and awful.

“Not until Clint found him.”

She finally turned to look at him again. Her eyes were wet now, but not soft—never soft. They were burning. Tired. Raging.

“How long?” she asked. “How long was he lying there before Clint found him?”

Tony hesitated. He glanced toward Bruce—silent in the corner of the room, eyes dark with quiet guilt. Then back to May.

“How long.” Her voice cracked. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”

Tony swallowed. “About six hours.”

May closed her eyes. Her whole body trembled once, a quake held in check only by force of will. A single tear slid down her cheek, slow and silent. She didn’t wipe it away.

“Six hours,” she repeated, and the words landed like a death knell. “He was lying in an alley, broken and bleeding, for six hours. And no one knew.”

Tony exhaled and stepped forward, placing a hand on her shoulder gently. He knew she was angry at him. She had every right to be. But he also knew she was scared. The last of her family was laying in a hospital bed, nearly unrecognizable under all of the bruises.

May didn’t move for a long time. Just the soft sound of her breathing, and Peter’s, forced by machines. Then—

“What are his chances, Bruce?” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “Tell me the truth.”

Bruce had stepped quietly back into the room while she and Tony spoke. He hadn’t wanted to interrupt, hadn’t wanted to face this moment. But now, he stood just inside the door, eyes shadowed, lips drawn into a thin line.

He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at Peter. Really looked. And it hurt—God, it hurt—to see him like this.

Bruce stepped closer, voice low and steady, but heavy with the weight of honesty. “The surgery went as well as it could have. But his brain took serious trauma. There’s swelling, bleeding we’ve controlled—but the damage…” He paused, carefully choosing his words. “We won’t know how bad it is until he wakes up. If he wakes up.”

May’s face twisted, like the air had been punched from her lungs, but she didn’t cry. Not again. She just nodded once, as if confirming something to herself.

Tony closed his eyes, jaw clenching so hard it hurt.

She took a shaky breath. “Is he in pain?”

Bruce’s answer came quietly, gently. “No. He’s fully sedated. He’s not feeling any of it.”

May pressed her hand against Peter’s cheek, fingertips trembling. “Good,” she whispered. “That’s good.”

She pulled her hand away again and went back to gently rubbing his hand.

“How long will he be in the coma?”

Bruce shifted his weight, arms crossed, jaw tight. “We’re keeping him under until the swelling in his brain goes down. That could be a few days. Maybe more. His body needs time to heal, and his mind… it took a hit.”

May nodded slowly, lips pressed together, but the next question came hard and fast—before she could talk herself out of it.

“Will he be the same if—when he wakes up?”

The silence after that was long.

Bruce looked down, hands tightening around his arms. He didn’t want to say it. Not in front of Tony. Not in front of May, who had already lost too much.

But she asked. And she deserved the truth.

“We don’t know,” Bruce said finally. “There’s a chance the brain trauma could affect memory. Motor function. Cognitive processing. We might see confusion, emotional shifts… maybe even long-term neurological damage.”

May closed her eyes. Just for a second. Then opened them again.

“But he could come back,” she said. It wasn’t a question. It was defiance.

Bruce nodded. “He could. He’s young. Strong. And he’s survived things most people couldn’t imagine.”

“He shouldn’t have to,” she snapped, her voice breaking open with a sudden swell of fury. “He’s a kid. Not a soldier. Not some weapon. Just a kid who wanted to help.”

Neither man in the room could argue with her.

May didn’t look up this time. Her fingers moved absently along Peter’s wrist, feeling for the pulse even though machines already tracked it. Her voice was quiet—but not hesitant. Not anymore.

“What kind of damage are we talking about—his brain, his spine?”

Bruce exhaled slowly. His posture shifted again, defensive without meaning to be. Like he was trying to take the blow for her before it landed.

“There was trauma to both,” he said carefully. “His spine isn’t severed, but there was swelling along the cervical region—near the base of the skull. We’re watching it closely. If the inflammation subsides without complications, he may regain full function. But… if it doesn’t…”

“Paralysis?” May asked flatly.

Bruce nodded. “Possibly. Temporary or permanent. It’s too early to know.”

She swallowed hard, her jaw flexing like she was forcing herself to stay still. Forcing herself not to scream again.

“And his brain?” she asked.

Bruce hesitated. Just a second. But it was long enough.

“You said seizures earlier,” May continued, voice tighter now. “What does that mean for his future?”

Bruce finally sat down in the extra chair beside her, shoulders heavy. Tony stayed behind May, silently listening.

 “He had two significant seizures in the first twelve hours that we know of. One during the flight back here, one post-op. Both were intense enough to cause concern about long-term neurological damage. It means his brain is misfiring, trying to protect itself—fighting back against the trauma.”

She was quiet, but listening intently.

Bruce kept going. “He could wake up with memory issues. Difficulty with speech, balance, mood regulation. There’s a chance he could experience chronic seizures going forward. And we won’t know the full scope of it until we bring him out of the coma. It could be weeks before we understand what he’s facing.”

May nodded slowly. No panic. Just quiet devastation settling in her chest like concrete.

“So, what you’re saying,” she said, voice brittle, “is that even if he wakes up—if—this might not be the same Peter.”

Bruce looked down. “He’ll still be Peter. But yeah. Some things may be different. We’ll have to help him through that.”

“And if he can’t come back?” Her eyes met Bruce’s then—steady and unflinching. “If this broke something that can’t be fixed?”

Bruce didn’t speak. He couldn’t.

May looked back at Peter. Her voice was barely a whisper now. “Then we help him build something new.”

The words had barely left her mouth when the monitors spiked.

It started small—just a twitch of his fingers. So slight it might’ve been nothing. But May noticed. She always noticed.

“Peter?” she whispered, her hand tightening around his.

Then his whole body jerked.

The machines screamed as his vitals surged—heart rate skyrocketing, oxygen levels dropping. The ventilator hissed in short, panicked bursts as Peter’s back arched slightly off the bed, muscles seizing, hands clenched tight.

“Bruce!” Tony barked, already lunging forward.

Bruce was at the bedside in two steps, his voice steady but urgent. “He’s seizing. Move her back!”

Tony reached for May, who resisted at first, frozen in horror. “May—May, you have to let go.”

“No,” she said hoarsely, holding Peter’s hand tighter even as it trembled in hers. “No, he—he needs someone—”

“May, now,” Bruce said, not unkindly, but firmly. “We need space to stabilize him!”

Tony gently but forcefully pulled her back just as another jolt wracked Peter’s body. His eyes fluttered open—unseeing, glassy, as if his mind wasn’t behind them anymore. Just terror. Just electricity and chaos firing through broken circuits.

“Diazepam, now,” Bruce called over his shoulder as a nurse ran in with the emergency meds. “Push 5 milligrams—IV.”

Peter’s body bucked again, a hoarse, ragged sound escaping his throat. His limbs flailed, uncoordinated, every muscle locked in violent protest.

May stood just out of reach, her hand over her mouth, sobbing silently as Tony held her steady.

“It’s okay, Peter,” Bruce said under his breath, one gloved hand steadying the boy’s arm while the other adjusted the machines. “We’ve got you. We’ve got you, kid. You’re not alone.”

The nurse injected the sedative. The seconds that followed felt like lifetimes—Peter’s body still spasming, his breaths forced and uneven.

Then—slowly—his convulsions began to ease. The rigidity drained from his muscles, leaving him limp against the mattress. The monitors began to level out, though his oxygen remained low.

“Come on, kid,” Tony whispered. “Breathe.”

Peter let out a small, choked gasp through the ventilator—air finally making its way back in. The hiss of the machines evened out.

Bruce didn’t move for a moment, watching the numbers stabilize. Then he exhaled and leaned back, wiping his forehead with the back of his wrist.

“That’s the third one,” he said quietly. “We’ll need to increase the anti-seizure meds. And maybe get a second MRI—check for any new swelling.”

May hadn’t spoken yet. She just stared at Peter—at his now-still form, eyes shut again, lips parted faintly beneath the mask. A thin trail of blood had leaked from his nose during the seizure. A nurse gently wiped it away.

“You said the coma would stop the seizure.” May said softly.

Bruce didn’t answer right away.

He looked exhausted—more than usual—and the weight in his eyes said he’d been dreading this exact moment.

“We hoped it would,” he said finally, voice low and careful. “The sedation was meant to let his brain rest. To keep the swelling down. And in theory, it should have reduced the risk. But...”

He glanced toward Peter, where the boy lay still beneath the machines, his skin pale and bruised, the tremors from the seizure only just beginning to fade as the medbay team rushed to stabilize him again.

“But,” May prompted, her voice thin, sharp, like a thread stretched too tight.

Bruce’s shoulders sagged. “But his brain’s still in a state of chaos. There’s misfiring. Pathways trying to reroute themselves. It’s not uncommon in trauma this severe, but it means the risk is higher than we thought. Even under sedation.”

May took a shaky breath, her eyes locked on Peter. “So what does that mean? That it’s worse than you thought? That he’s not stable anymore?”

Bruce moved closer, hands loosely clasped in front of him. “He is stable—right now. The seizure was bad, but we got it under control quickly. The monitors didn’t flatline this time.”

“This time,” May echoed, bitter. Her voice cracked.

Tony, still standing a few feet behind, flinched.

May’s eyes were wet again, but no tears fell. She refused to let them. “You told me the coma would help him heal,” She repeated, voice faltering. “That we were doing everything possible.”

“We are,” Bruce said softly. “But trauma doesn’t follow a script, May. We’re in uncharted territory. Peter’s metabolism is much faster than the normal humans. We’re trying to work out what will help and what won’t. And Peter… he’s fighting. His body is doing everything it can. But the damage is deep.”

She didn’t speak for a long moment. Just reached out and took Peter’s hand again, holding it with both of hers like she could anchor him through sheer will.

Then, quietly: “What if he seizes again?”

Bruce didn’t lie. “We’ll be ready. But the longer this goes on, the greater the risk of lasting damage. We’re adjusting the medications, monitoring the pressure in his skull minute by minute. But if the seizures continue…”

“You might have to take more drastic measures,” May said, finishing it for him.

Bruce gave the faintest nod. “We’ll keep him stable. That’s the priority. But long term—we don’t know what this is going to look like.”

May bent forward, pressing her forehead lightly to Peter’s hand. Her voice was barely audible now.

“I just want my boy back,” she whispered. “Whatever version of him comes back—I want him to know he’s not alone.”

Tony couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t look at Peter. The machines kept humming, steady and artificial, like they were the only thing keeping time from collapsing in on itself.

He backed up a step, then another, trying to be quiet about it—trying not to make the exit feel like abandonment. But his chest was tight. Too tight. He couldn’t breathe in this room anymore.

May didn’t stop him. Didn’t turn around. She just kept her hand curled around Peter’s, whispering things no one else was meant to hear.

——🕷️——

The night was thick with the kind of silence that made everything feel like it was about to break. Two people dressed in black were holed up in an old coffee shop in Hell’s Kitchen, the kind of place that had seen better days and was all but forgotten by the rest of the city. One man, one woman. The lights flickered above the two, casting long shadows across the small table where one of them was spreading out their notes. They had been working for days, piecing together what little information they could from the smuggling ring that Spider-man had taken an interest in. Tonight, it felt like something was finally going to give.

The man tapped his pen nervously against the table, his eyes darting to the window every few seconds. He leaned forward, squinting at the notes laid out before him. The woman, sitting across from him, was scribbling on a napkin, a small pile of papers already stacked next to her. She’d been quiet for a while, lost in thought, but now, her focus was sharp, intent.

“We’re close,” she muttered, her voice barely above a whisper. “I know it. This warehouse—it’s where they’re stashing the weapons. But we need proof, concrete proof, before we can move on it.”

Her partner sighed, running a hand through his short and unkempt brown hair. “If we don’t move soon, someone else will get there first. We’ve been tailing these guys for weeks. If they catch us first…”

“I know.” She cut him off, eyes narrowing as she set down the napkin. “But this—this is bigger than just the weapons. I think they’re preparing for something. The people involved… they’re not just gunrunners. This is a network.”

Her partner didn’t respond at first. "You sure about this?" he asked, his tone tight. "If we go public with this... it’ll make us targets. They're not going to let us walk away."

She met his gaze. “We don’t have a choice. We’ve already seen what happens to people who try to keep quiet about this. They’ve killed too many people already.”

He didn’t argue. He just gave a stiff nod and kept watching the street. It had been nearly 24 hours since Spider-mans attack had hit the news, and the woman had been moving cautiously ever since, worried the wrong eyes would be on her. It wasn’t just the smuggling ring now; the stakes were much higher.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She didn't need to hear the footsteps in the alley, or the muffled voices approaching the front of the building. It was something else—an instinct, honed from years of working in the shadows. 

“They’re here,” she hissed, pushing the papers into her bag.

Before the man could react, a shadow loomed at the door. The light flickered again, and the door was kicked open with a force that rattled the walls.

Two men in tactical gear stood in the doorway, their faces obscured by dark masks. The woman’s heart skipped a beat. They weren’t just thugs—they were professionals.

"Move," one of the men growled, his eyes scanning the room like a predator on the hunt. "Now."

The woman grabbed her partner’s wrist, yanking him up from his chair. “Run.”

The man barely had time to get to his feet when the men lunged forward. One of them grabbed his collar, pulling him back with brutal force. The man’s chair crashed to the floor with a loud clatter, and the woman didn’t hesitate. She bolted for the back exit.

She didn’t look back as she sprinted down the narrow alley, the sound of boots pounding behind her. She heard the man yell her name, but there was no time. Not now.

She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t afford to look back.

She slid around the corner, barely missing a steel pipe that would have taken her head off. She pushed herself harder, her breath ragged in her chest, praying to God she could outrun them. She knew she couldn’t keep this up for long, but she had to try. They’d kill her if they caught her.

The alley split ahead. She veered right, weaving between dumpsters and rusted barrels. She knew these streets—Hell’s Kitchen was her territory. She could lose them here. She just needed a few seconds.

She ducked into a narrow crevice between two buildings, her body pressed against the cold brick wall, praying the shadows would hide her. She heard the men pass by, their heavy boots thumping against the pavement, but they didn’t stop. They were looking for her, and they were good. Too good.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she forced herself to stay still. As the sound of footsteps faded into the distance, she risked a glance around the corner. The alley was empty.

For a brief moment, she thought she might have escaped—but then she heard it.

A single shot rang out.

It was close. So close.

Her eyes widened in terror, and before she could react, another shot echoed, followed by the sickening thud of a body hitting the ground.

It was her partner.

She staggered back, her breath catching in her throat. For a moment, time seemed to stop. Her mind screamed at her to run, to forget about him and save herself—but her feet wouldn’t move. Every instinct told her to go, but her heart couldn’t leave him behind.

Another gunshot, this one louder.

He was gone.

Tears welled in the woman’s eyes, but she wiped them away angrily. She couldn’t mourn him now. She had to survive. For him. For Spider-man. For what they had started. 

She gritted her teeth, her pulse racing as she pressed her back against the wall. The next few moments felt like a blur of adrenaline-fueled action. She darted through alleyways and across streets, trying to stay as silent as possible, but every step felt like it was bringing her closer to the edge. She could feel them hunting her, closing in, but she couldn’t afford to think about that.

Finally, after what felt like hours, she found a payphone. Her fingers shook as she dialed the number she had memorized.

The phone rang twice before the voice on the other end picked up. “Who is this?” The voice was calm, steady, a sharp contrast to the chaos surrounding her.

“It’s Delphi,” she gasped, her breath coming in ragged bursts. “I need to talk to Spider-Man’s people. Now.”

“Stay where you are. We’ll send someone.”

“Don’t wait,” The woman— Delphi— snapped, panic creeping into her voice. “They’re coming for me. I can’t—”

The line went dead.

Her blood ran cold, and she started running again. She couldn’t trust anyone. She couldn’t even trust herself.

But Spidey’s team had to know. Someone had to know what she’d uncovered.

As she disappeared into the night, the cold, harsh reality of what she had just lost began to sink in. There was no going back now. She was in it—whether she was ready or not.

Chapter Text

It had been two days since Peter was found, broken and barely breathing, in that alley.

Two days of hell.

The Tower had been quiet in a way that was deeply unnatural. The usual hum of movement and banter had disappeared — replaced by hushed conversations, heavy silences, and grim expressions. Every sound felt loud. Every second dragged. And in his workshop, Tony had locked himself away, burying himself in half-finished suits and abandoned prototypes that no longer mattered

Peter’s condition hadn’t changed — not for better, not for worse. Bruce had said that was “technically a good sign,” but Tony wasn’t convinced. He’d told FRIDAY to only update him if something changed drastically — if Peter woke up, or… if he didn’t make it. He didn’t have the strength to hear about seizures or swelling or respiratory status every hour. He just couldn’t.

So he paced.

He hadn’t slept. He barely ate. His hair was a mess and his eyes were bloodshot, jaw tight from grinding his teeth without realizing. His fingers were stained with grease and burns, but he didn’t feel any of it. The only thing he felt — really felt — was the rage simmering low in his chest. Rage at whoever had done this. Rage at himself. Rage at the silence of it all.

Then, at exactly 8:40 PM, his phone buzzed.

Tony flinched at the sudden sound, as if the world had just reminded him it still existed. He pulled it from his pocket, frowning at the caller ID.

Natasha.

He answered in one motion, voice rough with exhaustion. “Yeah?”

Her voice cut through the line like a knife — sharp, urgent. “Tony. Clint and I have a lead. A woman came forward — says she gave Peter the tip that sent him to the docks.”

Everything stopped. His lungs froze mid-breath. The pen he’d been fiddling with dropped from his fingers and clattered to the ground unnoticed.

The tip.

The reason Peter was even there.

Tony’s heart kicked into gear as adrenaline shot through his veins. He turned and sprinted across the workshop, barking out as he moved, “Where are you? I’m coming now.”

Natasha didn’t hesitate. “West end of the city. Corner Inn. Room 312. We’ve got her contained, but you need to get here now.”

“I’m on my way,” Tony said, already stepping into the holopanel that activated the Mark 49 suit. He didn’t wait for it to finish sealing before ordering FRIDAY to prep the flight path.

The gauntlet snapped into place with a metallic hiss as Tony’s thoughts raced faster than his hands could keep up. Whoever this woman was, she might be the only thread they had — the only chance of understanding who sent Peter into that trap. And if she was involved…

God help her.

Because Tony Stark was done waiting.

——🕷️——

When Tony touched down outside the Corner Inn, the repulsors kicking up loose gravel and dust, the first thing he noticed wasn’t the creaking sign or the peeling paint. It was the car.

A beat-up black sedan sat parked crooked near the front of the building, riddled with bullet holes along the driver's side. One of the rear windows had been completely blown out, shards of glass glittering like teeth on the asphalt. The entire vehicle looked like it had barely survived a warzone.

Tony’s eyes narrowed behind his visor.

A moment later, Natasha appeared from the shadows near the stairwell, striding toward him with purpose. She wasn’t limping, but there was a tension in her gait — something coiled and sharp, like a spring ready to snap.

She didn’t waste a second. “She goes by Delphi,” Nat said, voice low and clipped. “Claims she gave Peter the lead on the docks. Claims she didn’t know he’d walk into a slaughter.”

Tony’s face darkened beneath the helmet. “We’ll see.”

He dismissed the suit with a hiss of decompressing air as the nanotech peeled away into his chestpiece. His boots hit the cracked pavement with a solid thud, and he fell into step beside Natasha.

The hallway of the inn reeked of stale smoke and mildew. The carpet was threadbare, the kind that squished underfoot with a sound that made Tony’s skin crawl. Every door they passed looked like it hadn’t been replaced in decades — one of them had a fist-sized hole in the center, duct-taped from both sides.

Natasha stopped in front of a door at the far end — Room 312. She knocked twice, sharp and deliberate.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then a lock clicked. The door cracked open. Tony tensed.

Clint’s face appeared in the narrow gap, eyes flicking between them before relaxing slightly. 

He stepped back without another word and swung the door wide.

Inside, the room was dim and stale, the single lamp casting long shadows across peeling wallpaper and stained curtains. On the edge of the bed sat a woman — mid-thirties, maybe younger if you looked past the lines etched into her face. Her short black hair was unevenly chopped, and her pale skin was mottled with bruises and scratches. But it was her eyes that caught Tony’s attention.

Green. Not soft. Not tired.

Sharp. Watching. Calculating.

She looked up at them like she was already five steps ahead.

Tony didn’t sit. Didn’t blink.

He stepped forward, voice a blade. “It’s been almost three days since Spider-Man was left for dead in an alley. Why the hell are you just coming forward now?”

The woman raised an eyebrow — slowly, deliberately. “Because I didn’t know he was going to die.”

“Didn’t know he was going to be tortured either, I’m guessing?” Clint muttered from behind, arms crossed.

Her eyes flicked to him, then back to Tony. “I told him there was a smuggling op. Told him the docks at midnight. I didn’t know it was a setup.”

“You’re either lying or–” Tony was sharply cut off by Natasha.

“Tony. She has information. Let her speak.” She said, eyes narrowed. She knew Tony was working through a lot of his pent up anger still, but now was not the time to release that. 

Tony paused before he stubbornly nodded and leaned against the wall. He took a breath, evening his tone, “what do you know?”

“I called Spidey up the other night with some information. My partner, Tom, and I had heard some whispers about a weapons deal happening down by the docks. It was tied to a smuggling ring that I’ve been chasing for a while.” She paused, “I uncovered more after that night.”

Delphi hesitated, glancing at Clint, “Are you sure you’ll be able to protect me?”

Clint nodded, “we’ll do our best. If you help us with this, we’ll help get you into witness protection.”

Delphi took a slow breath, her fingers twisting nervously in the hem of her jacket. “There’s a new player in the city. A buyer, not a supplier. Quiet, precise, and extremely well-funded. No alias, no face. Just a name whispered in the dark—Wolfe.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed.

Delphi continued, “The deal at the docks wasn’t just a weapons drop. It was a test. The smugglers wanted to see if their pipeline had been compromised. They planted false intel, knowing someone was sniffing around. Spider-man walked straight into it.” Delphi quickly added, “I didn’t know it was a trap.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “You think they knew it was Spider-Man specifically?”

Delphi nodded. “They did. I don’t know how, but they were ready. I went down the day after I gave him the tip. There were EMPs everywhere. Set up to disable your bug’s suit. I hacked into one, found it had been transmitting since 9 pm the night before and had stopped just before 4 am. Just long enough for them to do what they needed to do.”

Tony’s blood ran cold. That’s why Peter’s suit had failed.

Delphi continued, “And the night before, Tom managed to intercept a transmission—encrypted chatter from someone using the codename ‘Wolfe.’ Said the ‘kid’ was getting close and needed to be dealt with before the 'shipment window' closed. Said they’d ‘test the prototype’ if they had to.”

Tony stood frozen. “Prototype?”

“Something new. A biological compound. We think it’s meant to debilitate enhanced individuals. It’s not a toxin in the traditional sense. It disrupts neural pathways. Slows healing. Breaks coordination. Leaves you conscious—barely. We think they used it on Spider-Man.”

Clint muttered a curse under his breath.

Delphi’s voice dropped to a whisper. “If they’re still moving those compounds, more people like your spider are going to suffer. You stop this now—or you’ll be cleaning up bodies in every city they touch.”

“What about the weapons you mentioned?” Clint asked.

She paused and swallowed, “I’ve been tracking this network for months. They’re ex-military, ex-SHIELD, some HYDRA leftovers, all ghosts. They’re moving high-tech weapons, yes, but it’s not just that.”

“What else?” Tony pressed.

Delphi looked down, “They aren’’t just selling the weapons. They’re stockpiling them. Strategically. I found manifests—cargo logs, fake invoices—and locations in Queens, Hell’s Kitchen, and Brooklyn. They’re preparing for something big. Coordinated.”

Tony finally speaks. “What kind of something?”

“I don’t know yet. But they’re recruiting. Ex-HYDRA, rogue mercenaries, even a few powered individuals. Some of them I’ve only seen in passing—codename-only types.”

Clint spoke next, voice low. “Do you know where they’re operating from?”

“I have an idea,” Delphi replied. “There’s a shipping yard off the river—Dock 42 in Hell’s Kitchen. It's not listed on any registry. It's been scrubbed from the grid. But satellite images picked up heat signatures—people, machinery, and at least three trucks arriving in the past 48 hours. All unmarked.”

“You said Hell’s Kitchen?” Tony raised a brow.

He glanced at Natasha. “If we’re heading into the Devil’s neighborhood… might be time to call the Devil himself.”

Delphi looked back up, eyes flicking toward Tony as she started to speak again. “Lewis Garrison. He’s the one who–”

She didn’t finish.

The sharp crack of gunfire shattered the room’s fragile calm.

A window blew inward with a burst of glass and dust. Natasha was already moving — a blur of instinct and precision — grabbing Delphi by the arm and yanking her off the bed just as bullets tore through the headboard.

“Down!” Nat barked.

Clint was at the door in an instant, cracking it open just enough to peer through. His voice was tense. “I can count six. All armed. Positioned on both ends of the lot — they’re here for her.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed as he activated the micro gauntlet he’d hidden in his jacket. It hummed softly to life over his right hand. “You think we can take them?”

Clint shook his head sharply. “Not cleanly. Not without backup. Not without putting her at risk.”

Another barrage of gunfire tore into the exterior wall, sending chunks of plaster raining down like hail. Natasha crouched low with Delphi, shielding her with her own body as they scrambled toward the bathroom for cover.

“We need to move, now,” she snapped. “Out the back window—”

The words barely left her mouth when another shot rang out — this one louder, closer.

Delphi gasped.

Her body jerked violently.

One clean, precise shot from the alley window.

Tony’s heart sank as he turned toward her.

Blood was already seeping through her shirt, just beneath the collarbone — spreading fast, too fast. She staggered back, her legs folding beneath her, and collapsed against the wall, eyes wide with shock.

“Delphi!” Natasha dropped beside her, pressing her hands to the wound. “Stay with me—stay with me—!”

Tony was at her other side in seconds, pulling out a field patch from his gauntlet, but even as he moved, he could see it.

The damage was bad. The bullet had punched straight through, shattering something vital along the way. Delphi’s mouth opened like she wanted to speak again, but no sound came out. Just a thin line of blood trailing from the corner of her lips.

Clint ducked back from the doorway, loosing a quick arrow through the cracked window to stall their attackers. “We need to move!”

But Tony was still kneeling beside Delphi, one hand braced against her trembling shoulder. Her eyes met his for the last time.

She didn’t look afraid.

Just... sorry.

Then she went still.

Chapter Text

The room was quiet.

Too quiet.

The kind of quiet that made your skin crawl, the kind that hangs right before everything explodes.

Tony Stark paced along the far side of the room, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket, jaw locked so tight it looked like it might snap. The overhead lights buzzed faintly, reflecting off the glossy conference table that sat empty — for now.

He’d called the meeting ten minutes ago. No specifics. Just one word:

“Urgent.”

And when Tony said it like that, the team showed up.

His pacing didn’t stop as he waited.

Fury boiled under the surface, masked only by exhaustion and blood that wasn’t his. Delphi’s. A woman who tried to do the right thing. Who died with half a sentence still stuck in her throat.

He couldn’t get her eyes out of his head. That look — not fear. Just sorry.

Damn it.

The doors hissed open behind him, and one by one, they began to file in. Clint. Natasha. Steve. Sam. Rhodes. Bruce. They could all feel it — the shift in Tony’s energy. Something had changed.

Natasha took a seat across the table, eyes dark. She hadn’t said a word since they got back.

Clint looked like he’d been chewing glass, arms folded tight.

Tony finally stopped pacing. Turned toward them. His expression was unreadable. But his voice—

It was ice.

“She’s dead.”

Silence. Heavy. Immediate.

“Delphi. The woman who gave Peter the lead that sent him to the docks,” he clarified, though most of them already knew. “We got to her too late. Sniper hit her through the motel window while we were trying to get her out.”

No one spoke.

“She was trying to warn us,” Tony continued. “She knew something. Something about who set Peter up. She died with it still stuck in her throat.”

A beat passed.

Then another.

And finally, Steve spoke. “You think it was Peter’s attackers.”

Tony nodded slowly, gaze locked on the wall behind them, like he was looking through it. “I know it was. Delphi’s partner was killed the other night. She said Wolfe’s men are tying up loose ends. Anyone who helped Peter is a target now. That includes us.”

He stepped forward, placed both hands on the table, and looked at each of them.

“Wolfe is still out there. So is this Garrison person. So is whoever else they’re protecting. They’re scared. We rattled something, and now they’re cleaning house.”

His voice dipped, cold and measured.

“So we hit back. Hard.”

Natasha leaned forward. “Do we have a plan?”

Tony’s eyes burned. “Yeah. We do. Step one: Find Garrison and Wolfe. I want everything that we have on these guys pulled up.”

He turned to Sam. “You and Rhodey are on that. Dig deep. I want you in federal archives, private contracts, black-ops dumps, whatever you can get your hands on. Use SHIELD backdoors, use Stark satellites — I don’t care. Find them.”

Sam nodded once, already flipping open a secure tablet. Rhodey didn’t move, but his eyes sharpened.

Tony looked at Steve. “Cap, I want you rewatching the inn footage. The camera angles were crap, but maybe facial recognition can catch something we missed. Look for anyone who wasn’t supposed to be there — delivery men, staff, street traffic. Anything.”

Steve gave a small nod. “I’ll get started tonight.”

“Nat,” Tony turned to her, “Delphi mentioned the docks. Said it was where they were operating. Get in contact with Murdock, see what you can dig up out there.” He turned to Clint. “You’re on sniper overwatch. High roof, full kit. If Nat or Murdock get so much as a gut feeling, I want you ready to take the shot.”

Clint’s response was a grim nod. No questions. No hesitation.

Tony nodded to himself, “I don’t want anymore time wasted. Get moving.”

And with that, he turned and walked out of the room.

——🕷️——

Tony walked out of the room with long, purposeful strides, his mind already spinning through half-formed schematics and tactical overlays, defaulting back to the only thing that made the chaos feel manageable: control.

Plans. Contingencies. Tools. Weapons.

He didn’t even register the hallway around him. His body knew the path to the workshop better than his brain did. He could practically feel the cool hum of the arc reactor-infused tools waiting for him, the empty coffee cups littering the console, the holograms still flickering on pause from the last sleepless binge. That was where he needed to be.

Where he could do something.

Then —

A hand closed firmly around his arm.

Tony’s body reacted on instinct, spinning around fast, shoulders tense and jaw tight, like a man ready for a fight. But it was just Bruce. Calm. Steady. Unmoving.

“Tony,” Bruce said quietly, eyes locking on his, “don’t do this again.”

Tony blinked, irritation prickling at the edge of his already frayed nerves. “Don’t do what, Bruce?”

“You know what.” Bruce’s voice was low, but resolute. “Don’t go bury yourself in that cave you call a workshop. Don’t lock the doors and drown yourself in half-finished suits and dead-end theories just so you don’t have to feel what you’re feeling.”

“I need to stay productive,” Tony snapped, too quickly. “Every minute I’m not working is a minute I could be missing something. A breakthrough. A trail. A way to fix this.”

“You’re not a machine,” Bruce said. “You don’t get to skip the hard part just because it’s inconvenient.”

Tony looked away, jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

Bruce softened slightly. “May’s at her apartment right now. She’s grabbing some of Peter’s stuff. She wants him to have something familiar when he wakes up.”

Tony exhaled, his shoulders sinking an inch. “I’ve been in the medbay, Bruce. You’ve seen me down there. I’ve been trying.”

“I’m not talking about wires or neuro-mapping or whatever Hail Mary protocol you were trying to code at 4 a.m.,” Bruce replied. “I’m talking about being with him. Sitting there. Letting him know he’s not alone.”

Tony hesitated.

“You’ve been pacing your workshop like a ghost,” Bruce continued, gently. “You haven’t eaten. You haven’t slept. And trust me, I get it. You feel responsible. But that kid — he doesn’t need Iron Man right now. He needs you.”

Tony didn’t move. He stared somewhere over Bruce’s shoulder, eyes distant, jaw working as he tried to form a response that didn’t exist.

Bruce laid a hand on his shoulder.

“The entire team is on this. You don’t have to carry it all. Not tonight. Let us handle it for a few hours, at least.” His voice dropped just a bit more, warm and unshakable. “Go see your kid.”

Tony’s breath hitched, just slightly. He blinked hard and dragged a hand through his already messy hair, trying to tame something that wouldn’t be tamed.

“Okay,” he murmured at last. “But if anything changes—if anyone finds anything—”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Bruce promised.

Tony gave a small, tired nod, turned, and walked slowly toward the medbay.

——🕷️——

The corridors were too bright. Too clean. That sterile SHIELD-white that always made everything feel colder. With each step, Tony felt his chest tighten, like the closer he got, the harder it was to breathe. Like grief was wrapped around his ribs and pulling tighter with every heartbeat.

The doors slid open without a sound.

Inside, the medbay was quiet.

The only sounds were the rhythmic beep of monitors and the soft hiss of the ventilator cycling air into Peter’s lungs. It was a room that wasn’t meant to feel like home, no matter how many times you tried to make it one.

Peter lay still in the hospital bed, wires and leads threading out from under the blanket like spider legs. His face was pale, too pale. Lips tinged with the faintest blue around the edges. 

Tony stood in the doorway for a long minute. His throat felt like it was made of sandpaper.

The next thing Tony noticed was the damp cloth resting across Peter’s forehead, the edges already beginning to dry at the corners.

He frowned. “FRIDAY, what’s the rag for?”

“Peter has a fever of 102.2°,” the AI replied, her voice low and clinical. “Dr. Cho is attempting to regulate his temperature manually while they administer a secondary antipyretic treatment.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Why wasn’t I made aware of this?”

“You asked for all medical notifications to be muted unless Peter’s condition became critical—”

“Right,” Tony cut her off. His voice came out sharper than he meant it to. “Thanks.”

He stood there for a moment, frozen just inside the doorway. Just… looking at the kid.

Peter didn’t move. Didn’t twitch. Didn’t so much as shift his fingers. His body was still locked in that unnatural stillness, the kind that made Tony’s chest tighten every time he saw it. The fever had flushed his cheeks, beads of sweat gathered along his hairline despite the cooling rag. His lips were dry and slightly parted. The rise and fall of his chest was mechanical. Artificial. Like he wasn’t really in there.

Like he was already gone.

Tony took a breath and crossed the room in slow, measured steps, pulling the chair that stayed next to the bed a little closer before he sat down. He didn’t reach out right away. Just rested his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them, staring.

“You look like crap, kid,” he muttered, voice quiet and frayed. No response, of course. Just the steady rhythm of machines.

Tony leaned forward, staring at Peter’s face. The bruises along his jaw. The tape on his arm. The cut above his eyebrow that still hadn’t healed.

He was silent for a long time.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Tony finally said, voice barely audible. “You were supposed to be smarter than this. I trained you better. I—”

His voice broke. He swallowed hard and tried again.

“You’re not allowed to check out, okay? I already signed up for the whole terrifying-parent-figure gig. Don’t make me figure out how to navigate losing you too.”

He dragged a hand over his face and leaned back, eyes closing for a moment.

“May’s bringing some of your stuff over. Probably your Star Wars socks and that hoodie you think hides how scrawny you are. She wants this place to feel more like home when you wake up. And yeah, I said when. Because I’m not entertaining any other version of this.”

His voice was firmer now. Grounded.

“You’re going to open your eyes, and you’re going to tell me some ridiculous science fact I didn’t ask for. And you’re going to whine about hospital food, and you’re going to ask if you missed any Avengers drama. And you’re going to live, Peter. Because you don’t get to die on me. Not you.”

His fingers brushed Peter’s hand. Cold. Still.

“I already lost too many people,” he whispered. “You’re not going to be one of them.”

He sat back, not expecting a miracle. Just waiting. Breathing in the quiet. Letting the steady beeping fill the space where words had run dry.

The world outside could burn. But here, Tony would sit beside the kid who had wormed his way into his heart, and wait.

Wait for him to come home.

——🕷️——

Early the next morning, a black SUV eased to a stop at the end of a dark, narrow street, headlights dimmed, engine ticking softly in the silence that followed. Natasha stepped out, boots hitting the pavement with a quiet thud, her silhouette momentarily framed by the open door before it swung shut behind her.

She stood still for a beat, letting her eyes adjust to the low light, sweeping the street with trained precision. A lone street lamp flickered above, casting long shadows between the buildings. The air was cold, sharp with the scent of oil and saltwater, the kind of damp that seeped into your bones if you stayed too long.

Her fingers brushed against the comm in her ear. “Is it clear?”

A pause, then Clint’s voice crackled through. “As far as I can tell. No movement on the rooftops, no heat signatures near you. Looks like it’s clean.”

Natasha gave a short nod to herself. “Copy that.”

She crossed the street, stepping through the rusted gate of the shipping yard. The hinges squealed faintly in protest — not loud, but enough to make her wince. Her eyes flicked up to the tops of the stacked crates surrounding her. They loomed high like a man made canyon, casting jagged shadows across the concrete.

It was quieter here.

This particular yard was smaller than the standard ports she was used to — more private, tucked between old warehouses and crumbling brick walls. Still, there were at least fifty shipping containers scattered across the yard, some stacked three high, others sitting like monoliths with their paint chipped and numbers fading.

It was going to be a long day.

“Has Murdock replied to your message?” She asked, her voice low but sharp as she moved toward a large green container near the center of the yard.

“Not yet,” Clint replied. “Maybe he’s tied up with something.”

Natasha exhaled slowly, muttering something under her breath in Russian. She stopped in front of the container, eyeing the heavy padlock bolted onto the handles. She crouched briefly, brushed her fingers along the cold metal, then straightened and reached for the bolt cutter strapped to her back.

“Subtle,” Clint quipped.

“I’m not here to make friends,” she muttered, positioning the jaws of the cutter around the lock. With a sharp snap, the metal cracked, the pieces clattering to the ground and echoing throughout the yard like a gunshot.

Natasha froze, listening.

Silence.

She pulled the container doors open with a grunt, metal groaning as they gave way.

Darkness met her — just shadows and dust.

Empty.

She narrowed her eyes, stepped inside briefly to confirm, then stepped back out. “Nothing,” she said, voice tight.

“Try a few more,” Clint offered, already anticipating her next move. Natasha rolled her eyes at his comment.

She moved with quick, efficient steps, working through a cluster of nearby containers. Blue. Red. White. All sealed. All locked.

Snap. Echo. Empty.

Over and over.

Each one was a dead end. A hollow shell where something had been — or should have been.

After the ninth empty container, she stood there in the middle of the yard, hands on her hips, breath visible in the cold.

“Clint, I think they cleared out.” Natasha said.

“Shit. Alright,” Clint swore over the comms, “I’ll meet you down there.”

Natasha nodded to herself. It didn’t take long for the archer to appear at her side.

“You sure they moved everything out?” Clint asked.

Natasha nodded. “Dust patterns are undisturbed. No fresh footprints, no scent of fuel or metal, and the locks were too easy—like they wanted us to open them.”

Clint glanced inside the container, then around the yard. “Could be a trap.”

“Could be,” Natasha agreed. “But if they were still using this place, we’d see tracks, oil stains, something. It’s clean—too clean.”

She crouched down, brushing her fingers lightly over the concrete. “They cleared out fast. Maybe a day ago. Maybe less.”

Clint sighed. “They knew we were coming.”

Natasha stood, her expression sharp. “Yeah. And they didn’t just leave. They vanished.”

A soft scrape echoed behind them.

Clint immediately turned, bow drawn in a heartbeat. Natasha spun too, her hand already on her sidearm.

Something had shifted in the shadows between the stacked containers. Barely audible. Barely visible.

Clint glanced at Natasha, not saying a word.

“I heard it too,” Natasha muttered.

They both stepped back-to-back, eyes scanning the dim yard.

Clint’s voice was low. “That wasn’t a rat.”

“Nope,” Natasha said, raising her gun. “That was a boot.”

Another sound—closer this time. A soft exhale. The creak of metal under shifting weight.

They weren’t alone.

Clint stepped back toward her, eyes locked on the shifting shadows at the edge of the yard. A faint sound—like the creak of metal—echoed above them.

Nat’s eyes snapped up. “Roof.”

In one smooth motion, she raised the gun toward the top of one of the containers. “You wanna come out now,” she said sharply, “or do we make this really unpleasant?”

Silence. Then—a rustle.

“I don’t think they’re here for conversation,” Clint muttered.

Natasha didn’t blink. “Then they picked the wrong two people to tail.”

From above, something dropped.

Fast.

Natasha fired.

The figure hit the ground. Then another figure jumped from the shipping crate, landing on the fallen one. Clint flinched as the second figure landed hard—solid, like a sack of bricks—right on top of the first. The man beneath let out a strangled gasp before a crack echoed through the yard. A punch. Brutal. Precise.

“Matt?” Nat barked, already stepping forward.

The figure turned, red mask catching the dim morning light. Matthew Murdock’s head tilted, nostrils flaring. His jaw was clenched, his chest heaving.

“Romanoff?” he rasped, voice rough from the chase.

Nat didn’t lower her weapon. “He yours?”

“Yeah,” Matt confirmed between breaths. “Been chasing him for six blocks.”

“Any particular reason?” Natasha asked, eyebrows raised.

“He’s been running weapons—military-grade stuff. Not pawn shop junk. The real deal. He’s also been following you two for awhile now, you should work on shaking off tails.”

Clint’s stomach twisted. “Weapons like the ones we’ve been tracking since Peter was attacked?”

Matt’s head snapped toward the voice. “What?”

Clint’s voice sharpened. “Peter. Parker. He was ambushed some nights ago. Left for dead. He’s still in critical condition. Ring any bells now?”

Matt didn’t answer immediately. His jaw clenched, and he turned back to the man pinned beneath him, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him up to a kneeling position.

“What did you sell? And to whom?” Matt snarled.

The man groaned. “I—I don’t know names—just move shipments. Someone paid double for one batch last week—high voltage stunners, military suppressants—said they were going after some ‘spandex kid’ who saw too much.”

Matt’s fist tightened.

Clint was already pulling out his comm. “Stark, Nat and I found a guy—Matt Murdock's got him. You’re gonna wanna get someone down here. This might be the first real thread.”

Matt turned towards the two Avengers slowly, voice low and steady. “Take me to him. I want to see Peter.”

Natasha looked at him, eyes sharp. “Yeah. You will. But first—we’re gonna find out everything this guy knows.”

Suddenly, the pinned man jerked forward.

A flash of silver—a glint of glass—and before anyone could react, he jammed a syringe into Matt’s neck.

“Shit—!” Clint shouted, lunging forward as Matt staggered back.

But Natasha was faster.

She delivered a vicious kick to the man’s chest, sending him flying backward into a shipping container with a metallic crash. The syringe clattered to the pavement nearby, half-full of a viscous, glowing yellow substance.

Matt dropped to one knee, one hand braced against the wall, breath hitching in his throat.

“Matt!” Clint crouched beside him instantly, grabbing his shoulder. “Hey—stay with me. You good?”

Matt winced. “I don’t… know what that was…” His words were slurred, already tinged with haze.

Nat scooped up the syringe carefully with a gloved hand, eyes narrowing. “This isn’t street-level junk. This is engineered—looks like something off one of HYDRA’s black market lists. Fuck, this is probably what Delphi was talking about.”

Matt exhaled sharply, sweat already breaking on his forehead. Nat checked the guy—unconscious but alive—then looked at Clint. “We need to move. Now. Get Matt back to the Tower and this sample to Bruce.”

Clint nodded grimly and pressed his comm. “Bruce, incoming. We’ve got a live one, a syringe full of something nasty, and a very pissed off Daredevil. Clear a path.”

“Matt, are you okay?” Natasha asked.

Matt gritted his teeth, fingers twitching against the wall as another wave of dizziness hit him. “I’ve had worse,” he muttered, though his voice was a little slurred. “But… something’s wrong. It’s not just a sedative.”

Clint crouched in front of him, scanning Matt’s pale face. “Yeah, no kidding. You’re sweating like hell and your pupils are all over the place. We need to get you to Bruce now.”

“Pupils… always all over,” Matt grunted, “I’m blind, remember?”

Nat had already started hauling the attacker up by his jacket collar and dragging him to the car. “I’ve got him. You get Matt out.”

Matt pushed off the wall, unsteady but upright. His voice cracked slightly. “Clint, I need to know—how bad is it?”

Clint met his eyes. “Bad. Skull fracture. Seizures. Flatlined once. We’re barely keeping him stable. We think someone in Hell’s Kitchen is responsible.”

Matt swayed, jaw clenched. “Then I will help you find who did this.”

Clint nodded and slipped an arm under Matt’s to help him toward the car. “But first, you're getting checked out. I’m not losing two stubborn vigilantes in one week.” Nat walked back, having dealt with the attacker for now.

Together, they helped Matt toward the SUV. He was still upright when they reached the car—barely—leaning against the frame as Clint opened the door.

But then, suddenly—

Matt’s legs buckled.

His body jerked violently, his breath shallow and ragged as he collapsed to the ground. His hands curled into tight fists, his muscles locked in a rigid spasm. The sound of his labored breathing filled the air.

“Matt!” Clint rushed to his side, dropping down next to him. He quickly checked Matt’s pulse, then looked up at Natasha, panic creeping into his tone.

Clint moved to support Matt’s head, trying to keep him still as best as he could. “Matt, come on, stay with me…”

Matt’s body shuddered violently, and his eyes snapped open for a moment, hazy and unfocused, of course that wasn’t unusual. Matt was blind afterall. He tried to speak, but it was a garbled mess of words before his body seized again. Finally, he stilled, but his muscles remained locked and tense. His head rolled to the side, eyes closed.

“Wake up, Murdock,” Natasha tapped his cheek. “You’re not dying in a damn alley, got it?” 

“That would suck, wouldnt it?” Matt slurred in a raspy voice.

A breath of disbelief escaped Natasha, “Jesus, you dramatic bastard.”

“Stay still,” Clint urged, voice steady despite the situation. “We need to get you back to the Tower.”

Matt’s body finally began to relax, but he was left breathing heavily, his face pale and covered in a sheen of sweat. Clint and Natasha stayed beside him, hoisting him upright.

“You need to get him in the car. We can’t wait any longer,” Natasha said as she stood, looking at Clint.

Clint nodded, “Alright, let’s get him moving.”

Carefully, he and Natasha helped Matt to his feet, leaning him against the car for support as they helped him into the back.

As soon as they were in, Natasha slammed the door shut. “Let’s go. We need to get him back to Bruce, now.”

“‘M fine” Matt wheezed out.

Clint glanced back at him through the rearview mirror, engine already rumbling beneath them. “Yeah, you look great, Murdock,” he muttered, whipping the SUV around the corner hard enough to make the tires squeal. “You get dropped on your ass, injected with god-knows-what, and then flop into a full-on seizure—and now you wanna play tough guy?”

Matt groaned, slumping slightly against the door. “Wasn’t… a full one.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Natasha said from the passenger seat, eyes flicking between Matt and the road ahead. “What the hell was in that syringe?”

Matt shook his head faintly, breath shaky. “No idea. But it hit fast.”

Natasha’s jaw clenched. “Great. Just what we needed. Another mystery substance.”

Clint glanced at Matt again. “Try not to die in the backseat. I’ve already got one kid in the ICU—I’m not adding a blind lawyer to the list.”

"Did you get the guy?" Matt asked, leaning against the window, using the coldness of the glass to ground himself.

“Yeah,” Clint said flatly, keeping his eyes on the road. “He’s in the trunk.”

Matt blinked slowly. “...You threw him in the trunk?”

Natasha didn’t look away from the road ahead. “It was either that or leave him zip-tied to a fire hydrant. You’re lucky we didn’t toss you back there too.”

“I’ve got a concussion,” Matt muttered, face still pressed to the glass. “Not a death wish.”

Clint huffed. “You’re lucky we were there at all. That guy didn’t hesitate. Syringe was out the second you looked away.”

“So who’s your friend back there?” Natasha asked, referring to their guest in the trunk.

Matt tilted his head slightly, voice low. “Name’s Lewis Garrison. He’s small-time muscle for bigger people. Last I tracked, he was running guns through the docks—high-tech stuff. Stark-grade knockoffs. I was following him, stopped when I saw he was stalking you two. He’s a slippery bastard.”

Clint’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “Garrison. That’s the name Delphi mentioned.”

Natasha smiled slightly, “looks like the universe is finally on our side. Garrison really fell right into our laps.”

Matt ground out, “You think he had something to do with Peter?”

Clint didn’t answer right away. 

“Yeah,” he said finally, jaw clenched. “I do.”

Matt hesitated, "What night was Peter attacked?" 

Clint glanced in the rearview mirror at Matt. “Three nights ago. Around 11 or 12 p.m., we think. Why?”

Matt sat up straighter, the cold glass momentarily forgotten. “I—I saw him that night.”

Both Clint and Natasha turned toward him at once.

“We grabbed food. He was nervous, kept checking his phone. Said something felt off, like someone had followed him earlier. I told him I’d walk him to the train but he waved me off.” Matt paused, frowning. “I didn’t push. Thought maybe he just wanted some space.”

Clint’s voice was sharp. “And you didn’t think to mention this sooner?”

“I didn’t know he was attacked, Barton!” Matt shot back. “I thought he ghosted me. I figured he just got caught up in something Spider-Man related.”

Natasha’s tone was more controlled. “Did he say where he was going?”

Matt exhaled slowly, thinking. “He mentioned needing to check on something. Said it was probably nothing, but that if he didn’t text me in an hour, I should come looking.” He hesitated. “He never texted.”

Clint’s knuckles were white around the steering wheel. “And you didn’t go looking?”

“I did,” Matt said quietly. “But by the time I got near the area, the whole block had gone quiet. Like… too quiet. I thought he ditched the meetup, maybe got pulled into an Avenger thing. I didn’t know he’d been left for dead in an alley.”

Clint didn’t answer. He just pressed harder on the gas.

——🕷️——

They pulled into the tower's garage. Matt was mostly recovered from his seizure now, but his senses were still dull and fuzzy, muscles still aching. Tony met them in the garage, looking pissed. Nat had kept him updated on what they knew through text. As soon as the car came to a stop, Tony walked around to the back of the car and popped the trunk, staring down at Garrison. The bound man glared back.

Tony stared coldly at Garrison, the dim trunk light casting sharp shadows across his face. “You know, for a guy caught dealing Stark-grade tech on my turf, you’ve got a hell of a death glare.”

Garrison sneered, blood dried on his lip. “You don’t scare me, Stark.”

Tony tilted his head, expression unreadable. “That’s cute.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small device—something sleek and pulsing faintly blue. “You know what this does?”

Matt and Natasha appeared beside him, arms crossed. “Tony.” Natasha warned.

“What?” Tony said innocently, still holding the device. “I’m just saying, it’s got a hundred different settings. Could be for diagnostics… could be for dismantling stubborn tech. Or people.”

Garrison flinched, just slightly. Behind them, Clint got out of the car and walked briskly towards the Tower doors. He held onto the syringe that Garrison had stuck Matt with.

Natasha reached forward and yanked Garrison out of the trunk with one hand. “You’re gonna talk,” she said flatly. “You’re going to tell us exactly who hired you, what you were doing in the shipping yard, and whatever else we decide we need.”

Garrison didn’t answer.

Matt tilted his head, trying to focus his dulled senses. “He’s scared. Not of us—of someone else.”

Tony stepped closer. “Then you better start talking. Because whoever you’re scared of?” He leaned in. “I promise I can do much worse than they can.”

Garrison’s glare wavered. Just a little.

Tony pushed him towards the Tower doors. “Nat, take Murdock up to get checked out.”

Natasha gave a curt nod and moved to Matt’s side, steadying him with a hand under his arm despite his quiet protest.

“I’m fine,” Matt muttered again, wincing as he straightened up. “But yeah. I want Bruce to take a look.”

“I’ll make sure he does,” Nat replied. “And if you try to run off before he clears you, I’ll tase you myself.”

Matt shook his head, "I know my way up there. You help Tony with your... guest."

Natasha studied Matt for a long moment, lips pressed into a thin line. He was pale, still unsteady—but she knew better than to argue too hard with someone as stubborn as he was.

“Fine,” she said. “But if you collapse in the hallway, I’m not dragging your ass.”

Matt gave her a faint smirk. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

She snorted, already turning on her heel. “Try not to hurt yourself again on the way.”

She watched him as he made his way to the elevator before turning and walking away. Natasha rejoined Tony, falling into step beside him as they hauled Garrison deeper into the Tower.

Tony shoved Garrison forward with a hard grip on his shoulder. “Move. You so much as blink wrong and I’ll let Barnes babysit you for the night.” It was a lie, Bucky wasn’t even in the country at the moment, but it seemed to get the point across to Garrison, who lowered his head.

“You think this guy’s the key?” Natasha asked under her breath.

Tony didn’t answer right away. His eyes were fixed ahead, jaw clenched.

“He’s a key,” he finally said. “And we’re gonna break the whole damn lock open.”

Chapter Text

Fifteen minutes later, Matt Murdock sat in the stark white medbay, the fluorescent lights overhead flickering faintly as if even they were exhausted. A faint ache pulsed behind his eyes—residue from the sedative still lingering in his system. Bruce Banner stood nearby, arms crossed, jaw tight, the faint lines of stress etched deep into his expression.

Bruce finally broke the silence with a sigh, not looking up. “I don’t believe you got hit with the same compound Peter did,” he wiped at a smudge on his gloves. “Something similar, possibly, but not as strong. Whatever drug was used on Peter acted almost instantly from what we can tell. You’d most likely be dead if you were hit with the same thing.” 

He paused, glancing over his glasses at Matt. “But until we know for sure, you’ll need to stay put for a few hours. At least until your blood tests come back clear. Observation protocol.“

Matt nodded, wincing slightly as he adjusted his position on the bed. He had hit his head pretty hard on the way down during his first seizure. His ribs ached with a dull pain, muscles still twitching occasionally, unpredictable spasms jerking through his limbs like faulty wiring. 

 "Fine by me. Long as I'm not out for the count again." Matt rubbed his temple, still feeling the lingering effects of the sedative. "How's Peter? Did he—" He paused, realizing that even asking felt like tempting fate. "Has he stabilized?"

Bruce set the vial of serum on the counter, clearly deep in thought. "He's stable for now. But he’s in bad shape. His brain's still swollen, and we’re monitoring him closely. He’s going to need a lot of rest—and even then, the road to recovery is going to be long. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when he wakes up."

Matt ran his fingers through his hair. "Damn it. Kid was just trying to do some good. Peter doesn't deserve this,” His jaw clenched subtly.

Bruce gave him a pointed look. "None of us do, but that’s how this works. He knew the risks when he became an Avenger.”

Matt’s finger twitched against the table, “how’s everyone else holding up?”

Bruce rubbed a hand over his face, “stressed. Exhausted. I don’t think Tony’s slept since we found Peter.” He shook his head as if to shake his fatigue away, “we’re all on the clock now. Who knows how many more people are involved in this mess?"

Matt straightened a little, leaning forward. "You think this guy in the trunk—Garrison—knows anything?"

Bruce shrugged slightly, "He could. But he’s playing it close to the vest. We’ll find out soon enough. The bigger question is what else is going on with the people behind this."

Matt was silent for a long moment, then asked, “Can I see the kid?”

Bruce hesitated. It wasn’t hesitation of uncertainty—it was dread. He looked away. “No. Peter’s got a nasty infection on top of everything else, and we’re minimizing exposure. And even if you could see him... there’s not much to see. He’s out cold.”

There was a silence, thick and heavy, before Bruce added quietly, “That said... he’s healing faster than we expected. He’s not even close to ‘healthy,’ but he’s no longer dying.”

Matt’s jaw clenched. “That’s something, at least.” He shifted, thinking. “How long are you planning to keep him under?”

“Well, we originally thought it would at least be a week, but with the way his healing is working, it could be sooner. I haven’t told anyone else yet, haven’t wanted to give any false hope, but we could look at pulling him out of it tomorrow.”

“Why not keep him under until he’s fully healed?” Matt asked, head tilting slightly. 

Bruce exhaled slowly, resting his hands on the counter. “Because if we keep him under too long, we run the risk of neurological complications. Comas are controlled, sure—but the longer someone’s under, the higher the chances of cognitive decline, memory issues, even permanent motor damage. Peter’s brain is already under enough stress from the swelling and whatever the hell that compound did to him.”

Bruce paused, folding his arms, tone grim. “His body’s healing, yeah. But his mind? That’s a different beast. If we wait too long, we might wake up a stranger. Someone who doesn’t remember what happened. Or someone who can’t even speak.”

Bruce glanced over at Matt now, his voice low but sharp. “So we’ve got a narrow window—wake him too early, his system might crash. Wait too long, we lose the Peter we know. It’s a gamble either way. But if tomorrow looks as good as I think it might... it’ll be time to roll the dice.”

Matt nodded. His throat felt dry at the thought of Peter losing himself. Of Peter waking up as a hollowed-out shell of himself. He swallowed, hard, and changed the subject, not wanting to dwell on the fact.  “Where’s the rest of the team?”

Bruce glanced at the clock. “Scattered right now. Tony’s interrogating Garrison. Natasha’s probably listening in—or doing her own digging. Steve and Rhodes are going through everything we pulled from our informants apartment. Thankfully they managed to pull up some of Garrison’s files earlier, so Clint’s helping with surveillance on known associates of his. Sam’s out checking local suppliers to see where that serum could’ve come from.”

He paused, then added, “Everyone’s running on fumes. But no one’s backing off until we have answers.”

Matt gave a dry chuckle. “Sounds about right. You put a kid in danger, and suddenly the Avengers remember how to work like a damn army.”

——🕷️——

Garrison sat slouched in the metal chair, wrists cuffed to the table. The integration room was cold, sterile—lit only by the overhead light that cast sharp shadows across his bruised face. His lip was split, and one eye was already swelling shut from the earlier scuffle with Matt.

The door creaked open.

Tony stepped in first, followed by Natasha, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, expression unreadable. 

Tony didn’t sit. He leaned over the table instead, both palms flat on the surface.

“You’re going to tell us everything,” Tony said coldly. “Names. Deals. Every bit of your supply chain. Because if you don’t…” He trailed off, eyes narrowing. “You’re going to find out what happens when you screw with an Avenger.”

Garrison smirked, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. “Didn’t know the brat was one of yours. Thought he was just some nosy punk.”

Tony’s hand slammed against the table hard enough to make it jump.

“Wrong answer.”

Natasha stepped forward, voice cool and precise. “The substance that was used on Spider-man. Where’d you get it?”

Garrison shrugged as much as the cuffs allowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 “Bullshit,” Tony snapped. “We have an informant who told us you’re involved. Full name and all.”

That made Garrison’s smirk falter, just slightly.

“I talk, and I’m dead,” he said. “You don’t understand who you’re dealing with.”

“Then help us understand,” Natasha said quietly. “Before we make you.”

Garrison smiled, “Nah, you don’t get it. I talk, I end up like spider boy. They’re probably already planning on how to silence me.”

Tony’s jaw clenched, and his fingers curled into fists against the table. “You’re already cuffed to a table in a building full of people who could end you without breaking a sweat, and you’re still talking circles.”

Natasha’s gaze sharpened. “Silencing you? So you’re not the top of this food chain. Who’s above you?”

Garrison laughed, low and bitter. “Lady, I’m not even close to the top. You think I run this show? I’m a delivery guy. A middleman. I don’t even get names—just drop points and payment. All I know is they don’t leave loose ends.”

Tony exchanged a sharp look with Natasha.

Garrison leaned back slightly in his chair, smile growing wider. “And if I were you? I’d keep that kid on ice. If he wakes up and starts remembering things… well. That just makes him the next target, doesn’t it?”

Tony’s eyes darkened. “You should pray he wakes up. Because if he doesn’t—your life is going to look like a vacation compared to what comes next.”

Natasha stared at the man cuffed to the table in front of her. She wasn’t here to play mind games and talk in circles.

“I’ll grant you protection if you talk,” she finally said. “If not, I’ll put you back out on the streets and tell everyone who’ll listen that you ratted.” 

Garrison's smirk disappeared. His eyes darted between Tony and Natasha, measuring them—measuring the weight of the threat.

“You’d do that?” he asked, voice quieter now. “You’d sign my death sentence just like that?”

Tony leaned in, voice cold. “You tried to kill a kid. You did kill someone’s life as they knew it. If I were you, I’d be praying I only let you walk away.”

Garrison swallowed, jaw twitching. “I want it in writing. Immunity. Witness protection. New name. Everything. I’ll talk, but I’m not doing it for free.”

Natasha crossed her arms. “That’s not your call to make.”

“I got names,” Garrison snapped, immediately dropping his lie from earlier. “Drop points. Fake companies. A whole list of buyers and sellers. You want the ring? I can give it to you.”

Tony didn’t blink. “You get one chance. Give me something real right now, or I’ll walk out of this room and leave the door open behind me.”

Garrison hesitated. Then:

“There’s a shell company—goes by Eastbridge Logistics. Front for arms deals. They’ve got warehouses across New York, but the real hub’s down in the corner of Hell’s Kitchen. That’s where the shipments get re-routed. That’s where the orders come from. That’s where they moved all of the shipping yard shit to.”

Tony exchanged a glance with Natasha, already mentally locking in the name.

Natasha’s eyes narrowed. “How did they know we were coming to the yard?”

Garrison smirked again—just a flicker of the earlier cockiness returning. “I gave you your bone. Now you keep your word.”

Tony stared daggers at the man before he turned towards the door, pressing a speaker.

“FRIDAY —tell Rhodes to get in contact with Fury about a possible Witsec,” he paused briefly, thinking, and then spoke again. “Get the team together. I want everyone up in the meeting room in 30 minutes.”

The AI gave a word of confirmation.

He turned back to Garrison, “Who ordered the attack on Spiderman?”

Garrison licked his lips, clearly weighing whether this next truth was worth the price. His knee bounced with nervous energy before he finally exhaled through his nose.

“I don’t know exactly who gave the order,” he said carefully. “I never saw a face, never got a name. Everything came through a ranked middleman.”

“Ranked?” Natasha asked.

“Yeah,” Garrison looked down at the table, “one of the higher ups in the organization. He’s not a boss, but he’s pretty damn close. Delivers messages to us from the real deals.”

Tony stepped forward, eyes narrowing. “Then give me that name.”

Garrison hesitated, then muttered, “Don Carter.”

Natasha’s expression froze.

Tony’s jaw clenched, “he’s dead.”

Garrison shook his head. “Everyone thinks he is. That’s what makes him perfect for this shit.” He leaned forward slightly. “You don’t get it—Carter’s not just some fixer. He owns people. Politicians. Cops. Blackmail. He doesn’t need to be out in the open to pull strings.”

Tony’s mind raced. Carter was a name that had disappeared off SHIELD’s radar years ago—buried in old, classified missions, all dead ends and vanishing acts. If he was involved, this went way beyond arms deals.

Garrison continued, “he goes by Wolfe now. I know your little informant told you that name.”

Tony gripped the edge of the table. That’s why all of Rhodes and Sam’s searches of Wolfe had come up empty, he wasn’t a real person. Just a persona. 

Natasha’s head snapped towards him, “where do we find him?”

Garrison leaned back, a cold, crooked smile returning to his face. “You asked who gave us the order, not where to find him. There’s your answer. But if you want to make it out of this alive?” He looked between them. “You better start playing smarter.”

——🕷️——

The low hum of the holographic table filled the Avengers’ strategy room with a steady mechanical pulse, a subtle rhythm to match the weight in the air. The lights were dimmed, the screen’s blue glow casting harsh angles across tense faces.

The team was gathered, clustered around a projection of Eastbridge Logistics—a sprawling facility with intersecting corridors, freight docks, and too many blind spots for comfort.

Tony stood at the head of the table, arms crossed tightly over his chest. The usual snark was gone from his face, replaced by a laser focus that had taken root in the aftermath of Peter’s assault. His voice was sharp, cutting through the silence like a blade.

“We know Garrison is connected to Carter,” he said, eyes sweeping over the hologram.. “We hit the warehouse hard,” Tony continued, jaw tight. “We find Carter, and we get answers—fast.”

Steve leaned forward, bracing his palms on the table. He was already in partial tac gear, the sleeves rolled up, shield strapped to the magnetic clamp on his back. His voice was steady, but edged with steel.

“And if we run into resistance?” he asked. “We go quiet, or we bring the noise?”

Natasha didn’t look up. Her fingers moved with practiced ease across the tablet in front of her, pulling up schematics and overlaying infrared scans. “We start quiet,” she said, tapping a highlighted corridor. “Back entrance here. Minimal cameras. Guard rotation every eight minutes. We get in, get eyes on Carter, and confirm he’s there before we escalate.”

She zoomed in on a section labeled ‘Sub-Level B.’

“This part’s sealed off from public access. Heavy shielding. Probably where they’re hiding whatever they don’t want seen. Carter will be there. Or someone worse.”

Sam stood just behind Steve, arms folded, wings collapsed and locked behind his back. His eyes tracked the blueprint with growing intensity.

“If Carter’s involved in what happened to Peter,” he said, voice low, “he’s not walking out of there without giving us names.”

“We’ll handle it,” Steve said firmly, casting a glance at him. “But we do this right. We get intel before we burn the place down.”

Bruce stood near the back, half-shadowed, hands buried in his lab coat pockets. He hadn’t spoken yet, but his eyes were locked on the monitor. Not just watching—but studying. Some areas of the warehouse was shaded in yellow pulses.

“This warehouse,” he said finally, “is giving off trace signatures of gamma containment material. Small amounts, but… enough to make me think they’ve been storing or transporting high-level tech. Possibly biochem.”

Tony turned toward him, frowning. “Biochem as in—”

“As in,” Bruce confirmed, “whatever they hit Peter with was probably made there. The stuff Garrison hit Matt with, it’s not the same. They don’t have any of the same symptoms. I’ll need a sample of what Peter was given, to create an antibody. Just in case there’s lasting effects. But, the problem is, I don’t know what he was hit with, or how many different chemicals they have.” A pulse of cold ran through the room.

Tony looked back at the map. “Then we get it all. Not just Carter. We rip out whatever they’ve got by the roots.”

Steve nodded, then looked to Natasha. “We’ll need a two-pronged approach. One recon team—quiet entry, eyes inside. Second team stays on standby. If things go loud, we hit hard.”

Natasha gave a sharp nod. “I’ll take recon. Me, Sam, and Clint. We’ll go in low-profile. Thermal dampeners, audio scramblers, the whole ghost protocol.”

Sam smirked slightly. “You just like telling me what to wear.”

“You look better in black than red and white,” she deadpanned.

Tony cut in. “I’ll handle aerial surveillance—FRIDAY’s already mapped a no-fly zone around the area, but I can slip in above cloud cover. If they’ve got anti-drone defenses, I want to be the one that trips them.”

“Steve, Banner, and I will be on standby.” Rhodes said, voice cold.

Steve looked around the table. “Alright. Teams set. We move at 0200. Full blackout. No civilian risk. And if Carter’s there… we bring him in.”

Natasha’s gaze hardened. “If he resists?”

Steve hesitated—just a second.

“Then we make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

Tony didn’t speak, but the look in his eyes said everything: He wasn’t planning on letting Carter win this time.

“We move out in 30.”

The projection flickered slightly as the strategy file saved and encrypted itself. Around them, the room fell silent again.

They had a target.

They had a plan.

And this time, they weren’t going to be too late.

Tony took a breath. Let the silence stretch.

Then he looked at each of them again — really looked — and said, quieter but no less dangerous:

“They killed someone trying to do the right thing. They tried to bury what she knew. Tried to kill my kid. They’re playing god with people’s lives. I’m done waiting.”

He straightened. Cold. Unshakable.

“We burn it down tonight. All of it.”

——🕷️——

The medbay lights were dimmed to a soft glow when Nat stepped inside, her boots quiet on the tile. Matt lay on the bed, pale and still. He had had another seizure earlier. His brow was furrowed even in sleep, as if his body hadn’t fully unclenched from the trauma.

Nat approached quietly and pulled the chair closer to his bedside. She studied him for a long moment before speaking, her voice soft but firm.

“I know you’re awake. You’ve been twitching like someone told you to lie still and you didn’t like it.”

Matt didn’t open his eyes, but his mouth curled into a small, tired smirk. “Busted.”

“I know what you’re planning.” She said, eyes narrowed, “sneaking out as soon as you get the chance.”

“I told Bruce I’d stay here, I would never lie.” Matt grinned.

“I’m not kidding, Murdock,” she continued, crossing her arms. “You try so much as try to stand, I’ll actually break out the zip ties.”

Matt cracked an eye open. “You really think that’d stop me?”

Nat tilted her head. “No. But it’d slow you down enough for Bruce to tranq you again.”

That got a weak chuckle out of him. “Fine. I’ll stay. For now.”

Nat leaned back, satisfied. “Good. Because you look like hell, and I’ve seen Barton after a week in the woods with no coffee. That’s saying something.”

Matt's smirk faded, his voice quieter. “Is Peter still…?”

Nat’s eyes softened slightly. “He’s stable. Bruce says his healing’s finally kicking in. He’s not out of the woods, but… it’s better than it was.”

Matt nodded slowly, the tension in his shoulders easing just slightly. He had already known that, of course, from his conversation with Bruce earlier, but it felt good to hear it again. Like a reassurance.

“You still look like shit,” Natasha said, changing the subject. “How’re you doing?”

“I feel better.” He muttered, “I’m not doing any good being holed up in here, yeah?”

Nat raised an eyebrow, scoffing softly as she leaned forward. “You feel better because you’re drugged, concussed, and stubborn as hell. That doesn’t mean you’re ready to jump back into the ring, Daredevil.”

Matt cracked an almost guilty grin. “Okay, maybe not jump. But like… light jogging.”

She stared at him, unimpressed, “do I need to tell you what the expression on my face is right now?”

He sighed, running a shaky hand through his hair. “I hate sitting still. I hate not knowing what’s happening.”

Nat's tone softened. “You’re not the only one. But right now? Rest is what’s helping the team. You push yourself too far, you’re just giving them more to worry about. You want to help? Heal up. Be sharp when we really need you.”

Matt didn’t argue right away. “Garrison give anything up?”

Nat sighed, setting the coffee cup down with a quiet clink. “Some. He admitted there was an order on Peter, but claimed it didn’t come from him. Says he’s just one of the lower middlemen.”

Matt frowned, jaw tightening. “And do we believe him?”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if we believe him or not— He’s given us a location. Seems valid.”

Matt sat up, suddenly focused, “let me go.” He ignored the aching in his limbs from moving too quickly.

Nat gave him a look. “You can barely walk in a straight line. There is no way in hell you’re going with us.”

Matt pushed, “Nat, I’ve been tracking these guys for weeks. I have more information on this ring than anyone else on your team. I know how they work, how they move.” Matt then added, “I haven’t had a seizure for hours.”

Natasha studied him hard, the way a sniper scopes out a target—measured, precise, no room for error. Her fingers drummed against the armrest as she weighed her options. The truth was, the team needed any extra help they could get. Matt wasn’t wrong. His knowledge of the network ran deep, and they were running out of time to act while leads were still hot.

But he was also a wreck.

“You really think you can keep up?” she asked finally, her tone unreadable.

Matt nodded once, solemn. “I don’t need to fight. Just let me come for backup. Let me listen. I’ll stay in the jet if I have to.”

Natasha studied him for a moment longer. They couldn’t afford to mess this up. She leaned forward, arms resting on her knees, voice low. “The second you seize or collapse or try to play hero—I'm dragging you back here myself, and I will use zip ties.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” he said with a faint smile.

Nat sat back and let out a slow breath through her nose. “Fine. But only because you might actually help us avoid walking into a trap. Bruce and Tony’ll throw a fit when they find out.”

“Good thing I’m not scared of Bruce,” Matt muttered.

“You should be,” Nat said dryly. “He’s the one with your med file.”

She stood. “Suit up. Slowly. You’re still pale enough to haunt houses.”

Matt got to his feet, ignoring the ringing in his head, “where’s my daredevil suit?”

Nat crossed her arms, giving him a flat look. “You’re barely standing, and you want the suit?”

Matt smirked, a little unsteady but stubborn. “I’m not going to a potential weapon warehouse in a hospital gown, Romanoff.”

She exhaled, muttering something under her breath about stubborn men, then jerked her head toward the storage lockers. “Bruce had it stashed with your stuff. You’ve got five minutes. I’m not babysitting you and waiting around. I’m going to convince Bruce to let you come.”

Without waiting for a response, she left the room. 

Walking back towards where the other’s were waiting, she motioned Bruce over.

Bruce glanced at Tony before walking to Natasha, “Yeah?”

Natasha crossed her arms, lowering her voice as Bruce approached. Her tone was firm, but there was a quiet layer of hesitation beneath it. “I need you to clear Matt for limited field involvement.”

Bruce blinked. “You’re joking.”

“Does it look like I’m joking?” She shot back, but kept her voice level. “He’s not going to engage. I’ll make sure of that. But we might have one shot at this lead and he’s too valuable to leave behind. If we mess up they’ll scatter. Matt knows Hells Kitchen best. Knows where they’ll go if we fuck this up.”

Bruce glanced past her, down the corridor toward the medbay. “Nat, the man is held together by gauze, painkillers, and raw spite. He’s still recovering from practically killing himself in the medbay earlier with his last fit.”

“I’m not throwing him into the fire,” she said, softer this time. “But he knows this network better than anyone. He picked up on things we missed before. If it’s a trap, he might spot it. If it’s clean, we could use his intel on-site. Just… the jet, Bruce. That’s it. I won’t let him do anything more.”

Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. “And you think he’s going to stay in the jet?”

Nat gave him a look. “If he doesn’t, I’ll tranq him myself. We’ve been over this.”

Bruce sighed deeply, clearly torn. “If he crashes out there, if he seizes again, I will blame both of you.”

Nat’s lips twitched. “Fair.”

Bruce looked toward Tony, who was pretending not to eavesdrop but clearly listening with one ear. “I want him monitored. Vital tags. No solo movement.”

Nat nodded. “Deal.”

Bruce exhaled. “Fine. He’s cleared. But you’d better pray I don’t regret this.” 

“I always pray,” she said dryly. “Just never to anyone who answers.”

He stared at her for a long moment, “Before we leave, I want you to run a blood test on him. Make sure his system is clear.”

She nodded, “give me a few minutes and we’ll be good to go.”

With that, she turned and strode off toward the medbay again, already pulling her comm to coordinate logistics. 

Chapter Text

Matt stepped inside the Quinjet, greeted by the low thrum of machinery and the clipped voices of the team running final checks. The scent of oil, metal, ozone, and human stress was thick—too thick. He gripped one of the overhead rails briefly—not because he needed the balance, but because the steadiness of it grounded him.

Across the aisle, Natasha was already buckled into her seat, one gloved hand tightening the harness as she glanced up. Her expression wasn’t annoyance. It was assessment. She didn’t miss the shake in his hands or the shadows under his eyes.

“Took you long enough,” she murmured, deadpan but not unkind.

“I move at the pace of someone trying to not rip stitches,” Matt replied, lowering himself into the jump seat beside her. The noise of the engines hummed through his skull. His hands were still shaking. Not from fear, but from fury. Exhaustion. Purpose. 

Across from him, Tony Stark stood at the main console, fingers flying across a multi-tiered holographic display. Maps, energy readings, SHIELD access records, warehouse schematics—all rendered in cool, precise blue light. His jaw was clenched. Every gesture was short and surgical. No wisecracks. No flippant one-liners. The light in his eyes wasn’t arc-reactor blue tonight—it was blood and fire and broken promises. Whatever illusion he’d held that SHIELD’s rot had died with HYDRA was gone now. 

Natasha gave Matt a once-over—he looked like hell, but there was purpose in his posture again. The fog that had dulled him in the medbay was lifting, slowly but surely.

“You remember the rules?” she asked, her voice low.

Matt tilted his head. “Don’t pass out, don’t play hero, don’t bleed in Stark’s nice jet.”

Tony’s voice snapped from across the hold without even looking up. “And just to make sure we’re all speaking the same language, Daredevil—this is recon. You sit. You listen. You don’t go full rooftop ninja, and we sure as hell don’t patch you up twice in one day.”

Matt slid shifted in his seat and clipped in. “Understood. No heroics. Just a warm body in a jet.”

Nat didn’t respond, but her gaze lingered a second longer than necessary. She didn’t trust the promise—not because it was a lie, but because Matt Murdock didn’t know how to not throw himself at the fire.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Warm’s debatable.”

Natasha smirked faintly. “He’s conscious and pissed off. That’s warm enough.”

Bruce leaned over from across the hold. “Vitals look good for now, but I’m keeping the monitor on him the whole time. You’re not expendable, Matt.”

Matt glanced between all of them in that not-seeing way, but sensing way—this strange, dysfunctional family of bruised heroes, every one of them worn thin but still standing. He gave a small nod.  “I’m not planning on dying tonight. Don’t babysit me.”

From the far end of the cabin, Clint piped up, breaking the silence with a flick of humor. “Well, that’s good to hear. We’ve hit our quota for near-death experiences this month. Peter’s got the gold medal, but Murdock’s gunning for silver.”

“Shut up, Barton,” Nat muttered, but not harshly.

The ramp sealed shut behind them with a loud hiss, and the Quinjet lifted from the ground a moment later. The city fell away below them and the skyline dropped away—lights bleeding into a sea of stormclouds. The bones of the city disappeared beneath them.

As they climbed, Sam’s voice came in over the intercom from the cockpit. “ETA to the location Garrison gave us: seventeen minutes. We’re going in low and quiet. If it smells like a trap, we pull back.”

“Copy that,” Nat responded, then looked over at Matt. “This might be our one shot to get ahead of whoever’s still pulling strings. So if you sense anything —”

“I’ll tell you,” Matt promised, his voice low.

Natasha nodded, eyes scanning the man. She knew he was full of bullshit.

Tony kept flipping through diagrams. “We breach from the west side. Lower elevation. Blast doors, reinforced concrete, and what looks like a decommissioned clean room. Carter’s paranoid. If he’s there, he’s buried.”

Matt frowned. “What’s the plan?”

Steve finally spoke. “Nat, Clint, and Sam go in first—ghost protocol. Stealth. Tony’s on aerial recon. Bruce and I are fallback.” 

“What about Rhodes?” Matt asked, head tilting. He had noticed the man’s absence.

”Rhodey decided to stay back. Keep an eye on Garrison.” Natasha said. There was another, unspoken reason, but no one said it aloud. In case something happened with Peter.

”Wouldn’t it be faster to send you all in?” Matt challenged, turning back towards Steve.

”No. Too many people increases the chances of getting caught and of someone getting hurt.” Bruce said from the front of the jet.

“Okay, sure. What do I do?”

“You, Murdock, stay here unless everything goes sideways. You know the terrain. You’re backup. Not point man.” Steve said, eyes flickering to Natasha briefly. He still wasn’t sure about letting Matt be anywhere near the warehouse, but it was too late now.

Matt nodded, jaw twitching. 

“If anything happens, you’ll be on comms to–” Clint was cut off by Tony.

“No comms. They’re probably scanning frequencies. We’re silent the second we hit the ground. Only comms run through me.”

Matt’s head turned towards Tony, “how the hell do you expect me to be of any use if I can’t communicate with all of you?”

Tony didn’t miss a beat. He pulled something small from his jacket and tossed it across the aisle. Matt caught it instinctively—a small, smooth device, not much larger than a USB stick.

“What is this?” Matt asked, fingers reading its shape.

“A direct link to my suit. Voice-activated. You ping me. That’s it. No group channel. No unsecured frequencies.”

“What if I need to warn them?” Matt pressed, voice low and coiled tight.

“You won’t,” Tony snapped. “Your job is to keep your ass in the Quinjet and spot escape routes. Nat’s team is extraction only—get Carter, get a sample. No chase. No fire fight unless we’re lit up first.”

Matt’s lips thinned. “And then what? You just walk away?”

“No,” Tony said, finally meeting his Matt’s unseeing eyes. “Then I burn the place to the goddamn ground.”

“That’s going to destroy all of the evidence, Stark,” Matt hissed.

“No,” Tony said, voice hard and sharp as cut glass. “It’s going to destroy their supply . The chains. The drugs. The tech. Every bastard involved in Peter’s attack who doesn’t manage to crawl out of that hellhole in time—I hope they burn with it.”

“That’s reckless and you know it,” Matt retorted.

Tony’s jaw tightened. “I’m not going to wait around and let someone rebuild this operation in two months because we tiptoed through it like Boy Scouts.”

“Tony—” Steve started.

Tony’s hand snapped up. “Spare me the ‘better angels’ speech, Rogers. They almost killed my kid and then dumped him in an alley.”

Steve and Natasha exchanged a glance. No one argued back.  The silence that followed was suffocating.

Matt turned forward again. Said nothing. His fingers closed over the comm-link device.

Bruce broke the silence first, eyes locked on his thermal readouts. “I’ve got at least six armed guards. Could be more. They’re spread thin, southwest side. Tight patrols. Looks professional.”

The Quinjet dipped slightly—altitude lowering as they approached the drop zone. Rain splattered against the viewports in thick lines. The engines rumbled low and mean.

Matt exhaled slowly, feeling the plane’s pressure shift. His senses spiked with every vibration. The scent of gun oil, synthetic fabric, Tony’s arc reactor hum—it all crashed in at once. He could feel the city beneath them like a pulse in his skull. His fists clenched and unclenched. The weight of what Peter endured—of what still might come—settled like a stone in his gut.

“You think Wolfe’s on site?” Steve asked Tony without looking at him.

Tony’s voice was ice. “I’m counting on it.” 

Red lights began to blink. The Quinjet slowed as Tony moved. The side hatch opened to a howling wind and the rooftop of Eastbridge dead ahead.

“Showtime,” Tony muttered, stepping toward the hatch, now sealing his helmet in place with a click. His face disappeared behind the gleaming gold mask. “Don’t deviate. Don’t engage unless you’re engaged. And for the love of God, someone grab Carter’s smug ass alive.”

With that, he was gone, stepping out of the hatch as his thrusters activated.

The Quinjet descended fast once Tony was cleared, cutting through thick, low-hanging clouds like a blade. Rain streaked the viewports, and the drone of the engines shifted into a deeper growl as Sam adjusted their course for a stealth approach. Everyone inside went quiet—save for the occasional beep from moniters or the soft rustle of gear being checked one last time.

“Touchdown in thirty seconds,” Sam’s voice crackled over the internal comms.

The team snapped into focus.

Natasha unclipped her harness in one fluid motion and rose, checking the twin Glocks holstered at her sides. Clint stood next, bow slung over his shoulder, quiver already latched in place. Sam pulled his wings into a tight configuration as he stepped back from the cockpit. Each movement was practiced, surgical. They’d done this dance before.

Matt stayed seated, but his posture shifted—head slightly cocked, listening. The warehouse was somewhere out there, crouched in the bones of a gutted industrial district. He could already hear the difference in the wind outside—the empty echo of it across broken metal and concrete. The quiet hum of electricity from somewhere deep underground. The faintest tremor in the Quinjet’s floor told him they were nearly on the ground.

The landing gear hit the ground with a shudder. The Quinjet’s engines wound down to a whisper.

Bruce glanced over at Sam. “If this goes sideways, we pull out. No arguments.”

Matt’s jaw clenched.

Tony’s voice came through the private jet comms. “Picking up faint heat signatures below the foundation. Carter’s likely underground. You’ve got movement—southwest corner, four guards on patrol. They don’t look like rent-a-cops.”

And just like that, it began.

Steve’s hand dropped instinctively to his shield.

Clint and Sam flanked Natasha.

Bruce stood near the console, monitoring vitals and environmental readouts.

And Matt—silent, senses cast wide—tensed.

Something wasn’t right.

Matt felt the air shift before the ramp hit the ground. He smelled the copper tang of wet gunmetal. Heard the buzz of faulty wiring deep beneath concrete. Something in his spine screamed.

The ramp began to lower, hissing open to reveal a world swallowed by mist and rain. The landing zone was an abandoned lot, hemmed in by skeletal remains of old cranes and rusting containers. Beyond that, a warehouse—concrete and iron, half-consumed by ivy and shadow. No lights on the outside. No obvious patrols. It was too quiet.

Matt was the first through. He didn’t wait. Didn’t hesitate.

Steve cursed. “Jesus—Daredevil, fall back—!”

But he was gone.

He didn’t need sight. He didn’t need strategy.

“Matthew Murdock, you fucking bastard!” Natasha hissed, eyes ablaze.

“Well, there goes our two-teams plan.” Clint muttered, exiting the Quinjet.

The mist swallowed them.

And hell began.

——🕷️——

The mist clung like cobwebs to every surface as Natasha sprinted low across the cracked asphalt, boots silent despite the rain. The air tasted like ozone and old rot—abandoned industry thick with mold, mildew, and secrets. Her pistol was drawn but lowered, close to the hip. Every step, every breath, was calibrated. Sam ghosted beside her, gun drawn. Clint had split off from the duo, heading towards the front of the warehouse.

She reached the western wall of the warehouse first, back pressed to the cold stone. There was no sign of Daredevil.

No sign of the man who’d bolted into the dark like a red shadow, slicing through the mission’s spine in one impulsive, reckless stroke. Her jaw clenched, fury and fear twisting into something sharp. She didn’t blame him—not fully. Not after what had been done to Peter. But that didn’t mean she’d forgive him either.

“Sam,” she whispered, “take the catwalk entrance. I want a view of the interior.”

Sam grunted assent, already peeling off to scale a rusted access ladder on the far wall.

She crouched low, the gravel crunching faintly beneath her boots, and drew a scanning puck from her belt with fingers that moved too fast, too steady, for what was burning in her head. She slapped it against the seam of the door. The puck blinked red three times, then held.

Wired. Pressure-sealed. Trip-rigged.

Not crude. Military-grade, with a fallback current looped into the frame itself—fail-safe and silent alarm combined. The kind of setup meant to punishanyone who thought they could walk through uninvited.

Classic Carter.

She worked fast—disarming the tripwire inside the casing with a slender set of tools from her glove. She’d done this dozens of times before, but tonight her hands moved with a barely-restrained violence. Peter’s blood was still fresh in her memory, his bruises mapped behind her eyelids.

The lock gave with a soft click.

She was in.

——🕷️——

The rain had stopped, but the air was thick—wet enough that Clint’s jacket clung to his back as he moved through night. The warehouse looked abandoned on the outside—rusted siding, blacked-out windows, weeds curling between the cracks in the asphalt. No signage. No guards. No activity. Which, of course, was the first clue that it was anything but abandoned.

He ducked behind a rust-pocked generator husk and held position, eyes scanning the upper vents. No movement. He moved forward.

Every step was calculated—bootfalls light, bow already in hand. No arrows yet. He wanted to see what he was walking into before he decided how loud this was going to get.

He reached the front access door, an unmarked steel slab with a manual lock—old-school. The kind you picked with a touch and a whisper. He pulled a thin tool from his vest, slotted it into the seam, and the mechanism clicked over like an obedient dog. The door opened with a reluctant groan.

He slipped inside.

Dark. Not pitch black—emergency lighting pulsed faintly above, casting the space in a dim red wash. Long shadows stretched like fingers over the concrete. And beneath it all—quiet. But not silence. A distant hum. Rhythmic. Mechanical.

He was in a corridor now. Pipes lining the ceiling, old industrial fixtures sealed off with newer bolts. Half-reclaimed space. Stark called it a ghost retrofit. Places HYDRA or worse liked to hollow out and build inside like parasites. This place reeked of it.

He passed the first room. Storage. Crates stamped with faded red words. Some broken open, foam insulation spilling out like viscera. Inside? Tubes. Canisters. Some were cryo-sealed, others bearing international hazmat symbols. Yellow biohazard stickers faded from time. He didn’t touch them. Just took a photo with his wrist cam and kept moving.

One step at a time, he crept forward—silent, tight, loose bow slung across his back, fingers brushing the fletching of a tranquilizer arrow. Not for combat. For silence. For insurance. Second room—tech bay. This one made his skin crawl. Something was off here. Stark’s intel had said “storage.” Not this.

Below, rows of crates stretched out like coffins—stacked three high, reinforced with black polymer and hazard seals. Not the kind of things you stash old gear in. These weren’t supply containers.

They were weapons lockers.

And worse—biological containment units.

He dropped down with barely a whisper, knees bending as he landed between two steel towers. The air was colder here—unnaturally so. Refrigerated. Not arctic like a food locker. Clinical. Surgical.

He moved like a shadow through the aisles, brushing his gloved fingers across the warning labels:

  VX-23 Variant. NERVE AGENT.
 Live sample: Bacillus strain 34X.
 Weaponized Influenza-B Recombinant. Handle with B-grade isolation protocol.
 DO NOT EXPOSE TO AIR.
 PROPERTY OF WRAITH CELL 7.
 CARTER-CODE LOCK ONLY.

He swore under his breath, slow and quiet. HYDRA. This wasn’t just storage. It was active. Maintained. Fresh calibration dates. Fluids still bubbling in shock-mounted tubes.

Rows of devices lined steel tables. Stark tech, sure—he recognized the power cores—but twisted. Rewired. One had a miniature arc cell stitched into what looked like a pulse mine. Next to it: a sleek black rifle, unmistakably SHIELD-issue, modified to accept vials of something thick and amber. A chemical delivery weapon. Probably aerosol-based.

He stepped towards the tables, quiet as death. Scanned for motion. Nothing.

But then—click.

He froze.

Sound came from his left—behind a column of dismantled server racks. A man stepped out, rifle in hand. Guard. HYDRA uniform, stripped of insignia, but the posture was unmistakable. Trained. Alert. Armed. Ex-military by the way he moved. Not just a hired gun.

Clint didn’t hesitate.

He pivoted low, kicked a loose power cell toward the guard’s feet—distraction. As the man flinched, Clint surged forward. One hand grabbed the barrel, forced it high, but not before the guard managed to fire a shot. Clint brought his elbow into the man’s throat with a brutal, efficient arc. The guard stumbled. A gasp—cut short.

Clint followed through.

He drove the guard back into the wall, head slamming into concrete. Dazed, but not out. The rifle clattered. The man reached for a sidearm.

Too slow.

Clint slammed his palm into the man’s wrist, twisted hard. Bone cracked. Then he delivered a knee to the stomach that bent the man in half. A finishing blow to the side of the head dropped him cold.

Clint let the body fall. One breath. Two.

He crouched and retrieved the weapon. Checked it. Still live. Safety off. He kicked it away, then pulled a zip-tie from his belt and bound the man’s wrists behind his back.

He scanned the room again. Satisfied he had gotten all of the pictures he needed, he moved on.

——🕷️——

The door opened to darkness. Not just unlit—engineered darkness. Windowless. The air was dry here, scrubbed. Cold. A sterile void at odds with the rusted exterior.

Natasha stepped into the warehouse silently, swept the corners with her sidearm. The air was too clean. Filtered. No dust. No mildew. Just sterile emptiness and the faint undertone of oil. The floor was smooth concrete, recently cleaned. No signs of habitation—but she could hear it. Underneath. The hum of generators. The faint, mechanical hiss of hydraulic systems. Something lived in the belly of this place.

Then she heard it.

Gunfire.

Muffled. Sharp. Distant—beneath her.

She crouched low, stalking deeper into the interior corridor. The hallway forked. One direction dead-ended at a wall of sealed lockers and a gutted vending machine. The other bent sharply—down.

There was a service stairwell. No signs. No guard.

That’s the trap, she thought. It’s too easy.

Still—she moved.

Each step downward shifted the atmosphere. The air got colder. The walls turned to reinforced steel. A red light pulsed faintly at intervals along the steps—barely enough to see by.

Halfway down, she caught the smell.

Not blood. Not oil.

Chlorine. Bleach. Disinfectant.

A lab. A cleanroom.

She reached the landing and paused, back to the wall. Voices. Two—maybe three. Male. Talking in short, clipped bursts.

“…confirm the shift…”
“…orders were clear. We move him now.”
“…what about the outlier—?”

A door out of her sight hissed open.

Then, a thud. The unmistakable sound of a body hitting steel. A scream—wet, choked.

Natasha moved, fast and silent, rounding the corner with her weapon raised.

The hallway opened into a larger chamber—brightly lit, all stainless steel and pale blue luminescence. Medical-grade lighting. And in the middle of the room—chaos.

One guard was already down, his arm bent at an unnatural angle. Another was slumped against the wall, unconscious or dead, with a baton-sized dent in his chest armor. One was still up—swinging a pulse rifle wildly toward the blur of black  darting through the light.

Clint.

——🕷️——

He hadn't meant to come in this hot.

Clint had told himself— told Tony, told Natasha, told himself again as he dropped into this godforsaken rabbit hole of Carter’s facility—that he was going to play it smart. Quiet. Scout. Confirm. Extract. That was the plan.

But the moment he stepped into the lower corridor, something shifted.

It wasn’t just the cold, though the chill settled into his bones like a warning. It wasn’t the fluorescent buzz, or the way the walls had turned from neglected drywall to reinforced, riveted steel. It wasn’t even the rows of sterile, glass-sealed labs behind bulletproof panels that prickled at his skin like a thousand unseen eyes.

It was the smell.

The bleach. The ammonia. That sharp, sterile tang of chemical cover-up. Clint had smelled it before—in enemy black sites, in HYDRA bunkers, in the aftermath of things good men weren’t meant to survive.

And then he’d seen it.

A gurney. Rolled on its side, half in shadow. Still wet with something too red to be rust. Straps shredded. Not cut— torn. The wall beside it dented in a pattern he recognized instantly: restraint points. Someone had been held there. Someone who fought like hell to get out.

That’s when Clint snapped.

No more stealth. No more recon. His hands were already on his bow, his boots already moving faster than his head.

He’d followed the noises—the groan of hydraulics, the low murmur of voices. At the first glimpse of a white coat, he fired an arrow. The second man had barely time to raise a weapon before Clint slammed him against the wall, disarmed him, and dropped him with a calculated strike to the throat.

But it was the third guard—the one barking orders, dragging a body by the collar toward a containment door—that pushed him over the edge.

That man had smiled. Just for a second. That smug, bureaucratic curl of a mouth that said you’re too late.

Clint saw red.

He didn’t remember pulling the baton off the wall. Didn’t remember swinging. Just remembered the crunch—chestplate giving way like cheap fiberglass, the man flying backward into the wall and staying down.

The last guard—panicked, younger—raised a pulse rifle and fired wildly, rounds scattering into glass and steel. Clint dodged left, hit the floor in a roll, came up beside him. He grabbed the rifle, twisted, used the man’s own momentum to flip him forward—and slammed his face into the edge of the containment door.

Hard.

He heard the skull crack. Saw a molar bounce under the table. Didn’t flinch.

He only stepped back when the guard dropped completely, twitching once before going still. He dropped the baton.

Clint’s breath tore out of him like steam from a ruptured pipe. He was shaking—not from fear, not from adrenaline. 

From rage.

From the knowledge that they had done this again. To Peter. To someone. 

Clint hadn’t cried. He didn’t scream. He hadn’t said a word to anyone.

He’d just waited. Waited until they found Carter’s rat nest.

And now here he was. Standing in the middle of a sterilized slaughterhouse, staring down at bodies that deserved it, and the only thing he felt was the burn behind his eyes and the tremor in his fists. His eyes found the body that the guard had been dragging. He didn’t have to check for a pulse. The corpse was gray, eyes open, rigor mortis already setting in.

Then he heard her boots.

Clint turned—and there she was.

“Natasha,” he rasped. His chest heaved, blood flecking the edge of his teeth. “You—”

She lowered her weapon. “Yeah.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Clint’s heavy, ragged breath the only sound in the room.

Natasha’s eyes scanned the sterile room. Her eyes stopped briefly on the body next to Clint, but she quickly moved on. There were three sealed containment doors. One had a faint handprint on the inside of the glass—a small one. Smudged with blood.

Natasha cursed under her breath.

“Where’s Carter?” she asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Tony said he’d be in sub-level B. That’s down a floor.” He pointed to the rear of the lab—a narrow stairwell hidden behind a crash cart and a cabinet of used restraints.

She nodded, jaw clenched.

“Let’s move.”

Clint nodded, swallowing thickly. He didn’t spare another glance to the guards.

The next stairwell was slick with humidity. Mold snaked up the corners of the walls like veins, and something buzzed behind the panels—electrical interference, maybe, or insects too small to see. The smell here was different.

Not just bleach. Not just sweat.

Decay.

They hit the landing and stepped into a junction. Natasha stopped dead.

Blood.

It wasn’t much—just a thin smear, drying against concrete. Fresh. Hours old at most. Drag marks. Human.

Her stomach turned—not from revulsion, but from recognition.

They followed it.

They reached a chamber beyond the corridor.

It was wide—fifty by fifty feet, at least. Metal panels formed half-finished walls. Cages, some of them still closed. Medical equipment in corners—restraints. Drip lines. Biohazard bins. Medical tables. IV lines. Torture equipment repurposed as diagnostics. 

And chains.

Then a door.

Far wall. Sealed. No handles. Just a keypad, retinal scanner, and a fingerprint sensor hardwired into a Stark-designed locking frame. But not Stark’s system. Reverse engineered. Bastardized.

Clint had already moved. He stalked across the room, past the cages— God, some were small enough for children —and reached the sealed metal door. 

Clint didn’t wait. He drew an EMP arrow and fired it point-blank.

No effect.

The panel glitched—but held.

“Jesus, Barton,” Natasha hissed, shoving him aside. “We’re trying not to announce ourselves.”

She dropped to one knee, pulled a microcharge from her belt pouch, and pressed it against the scanner. The charge clung with a magnetic lock, primed for a silent breach. She tapped a code on her wristband.

Hiss. Flash. Silence.

The lock blew with a flicker of blue light, and the door cracked open.

The corridor beyond was darker. Cramped. Smelled of bleach and rot, similar to the current space.

There was a voice somewhere up ahead—low, rasping, angry.

She didn’t hesitate. She tore past Clint, disappearing into the corridor.

Her boots hit wet concrete, and she turned a corner into hell.

The room beyond was a surgical suite turned bunker. Floodlights overhead. A table in the center—stainless steel, with restraints hanging limp at the sides. Equipment humming. Displays flickering.

Matt was there. Standing over a man with a bloodied mouth and a shattered hand.

Don Carter.

And he was still talking.

“You don’t understand what you’re dismantling,” he wheezed, spitting teeth into his palm. “We were building a future—”

Matt hit him again. But apparently that wasn’t enough, because as soon as the blow landed he was raising his fist again.

Natasha lunged, caught his arm mid-swing, shoved him back. Hard.

“You were supposed to wait!” she snarled, shoving him into the wall with her forearm pressed to his throat. Clint moved silently into the room as Natasha spat at Matt, “you were backup!”

Matt didn’t resist. But he didn’t look sorry either. Blood soaked his knuckles, his breathing ragged. “He was leaving. I heard the stairwell open. He had a passcode. There was no time. ”

Carter coughed wetly from the floor, one eye swollen shut. “You’re too late anyway,” he hissed. “You think this was the whole operation?”

“Shut up, Carter,” Matt snarled. His usual calm, rational behavior was gone. In it’s place was pure hatred. Rage.

Natasha’s grip on Matt’s collar tightened. As far as she was concerned, Matt was now a liability. Not to be trusted.

“Clint, see what you can pull from the computers,” Natasha said, eyes not leaving Matt. She paid no mind to Carter. The blind man had hit Carter hard enough that she doubted the man was moving to get up anytime soon.

“Already on it,” Clint said, moving to the consoles. He flicked his comm on. There was no use in hiding his signal anymore, not with their target being right in front of them. “Tony, we have Daredevil and Carter.”

His eye caught a glass case mounted on the wall as he turned to the computers. Inside—a rack of sealed vials. “Found your sample,” the archer muttered. He pulled a USB drive from his belt, shoving it into the nearest console. He notched an arrow and fired it at the case, shattering the glass. Shards rained down, clinking on the floor and echoing through the room.

The assassin narrowed her eyes at Matt before she turned to grab the vials.

She was stopped short, though, as her emergency comms crackled—barely functional.

Tony’s voice, full of static: “Eastbridge… compromised. HYDRA… fallback… fallback now—”

The signal died.

Natasha looked at Clint, face tight, before turning her attention back to Matt. “Grab the vials, Daredevil. Clint pull whatever you can,” Natasha snapped, whirling around to face Carter with her gun up.

She froze when her eyes met his.

He clutched a small black remote in his hand with a single white button in the center. A detonator.

“Put it down.” She said, voice tight.

The red dot of her sidearm held steady over Carter’s heart, but her eyes—those cold, calculating eyes—were locked on the small black remote in his shaking hand. Her body was coiled steel, every muscle tight, ready to snap. Behind her, Matt stood a pace back, vials in hand, slightly slouched from the fight. But his head was tilted, focused, sensing Carter’s every breath. Every movement. Every lie.

“Put it down,” Natasha repeated, flatly.

Carter’s lip curled into something almost amused, though sweat beaded at his temple. “You think I won’t do it? I built this place to blow. Failsafes in every wall. You think I’d let you drag me into the light?”

Clint took a slow step forward. “You’re bluffing.”

“No,” Carter snapped, eyes flashing. “I’m desperate. That’s worse.”

Natasha saw it—his thumb twitching against the activation button. His breathing sped up. His pupils were blown wide, adrenaline firing wild and irrational. This wasn’t a man who wanted to die. This was a man who’d convinced himself he had nothing left to lose.

Matt felt it too. The vibrations through the floor—subtle but building. Circuits heating. Power shifting somewhere beneath the structure. He tilted his head sharply. “He’s not bluffing.”

Natasha’s gun didn’t lower. “Then don’t give him a reason to press it.”

“I don’t need a reason,” Carter said, voice cracking. “You already took everything. SHIELD. My name. My work . You think I give a damn about surviving this?”

Matt’s voice was quiet. Controlled. “Then why are you still talking?”

Carter faltered.

“People who’ve made peace with dying don’t monologue,” Matt said, stepping forward again despite the lurch of pain in his side. “You want to die with us because you’re too much of a coward to do it alone.”

Carter’s face twisted. “You don’t know anything about—”

“I know you weren’t always this,” Matt said, voice like gravel. “I know you’re scared. I can hear it in your heartbeat. You’re not angry. You’re cornered.”

Carter’s hands shook. The remote didn’t fall.

Natasha’s voice cut through. “You press that button, and you bury every last scrap of your ‘legacy’ under ten thousand tons of steel and ash. Whatever tech you developed, whatever dirt you think you held—it dies with you. That’s your big revenge? Oblivion?”

Carter’s thumb hovered over the trigger.

He didn’t answer.

Behind them, thunder cracked. But it wasn’t thunder—it was deeper. Felt in the bones.

Matt turned his head sharply. “Nat—”

The vibrations intensified. Too fast. Too coordinated. Matt could hear the charges powering.

Natasha lunged.

Carter screamed.

His thumb slammed the button.

The world exploded.

Chapter Text

Tony Stark was thirty seconds away from breaching the warehouse when lit up beneath him.

He hovered two hundred feet above the old facility, armor gleaming against the overcast sky, scanning for residual thermal signatures with nothing but static in his ear. No chatter. No comms. That had been the point—they couldn’t risk the frequency being picked up. Which meant he was flying blind, trusting Natasha’s plan and Barton’s stubborn precision. 

But the plan had gone sideways two minutes ago.

Tony’s HUD snapped to red as a bloom of thermal energy registered on the eastern perimeter. Then another. Heat signatures converging—fast. Too fast for coincidence.

There had to be at least 20 of them. Tony swore. Without thinking, he flipped on his emergency comm. Their cover had already been blown, there was no point in masking frequencies now.

“Eastbridge is being swarmed, you’ve been compromised. There’s at least 20, probably HYDRA. Romanoff, fall back. Do you hear me? Fallback now, you need to get out.” He yelled into the device.

He waited for a response.

10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds. Nothing.

Then the building below him detonated.

It wasn’t dramatic at first. There was no Hollywood fireball, no mushroom cloud. The concrete pulsed, like something inside had exhaled. Then came a pop, followed by a shudder that rolled through the surrounding block like a ripple in the asphalt.

And then all hell broke loose.

The southwest quadrant of the building erupted like a volcano. A geyser of debris—glass, steel, flame—blew out of the structure with a noise so deep it rattled the arc reactor in Tony’s chest. The HUD flared red with seismic warnings. Fire licked up through the fractured roof as panels sheared off and smoke erupted in billowing plumes, thick as tar and fast as a jet engine.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” Tony snapped, already banking hard into a dive. “What the hell just happened?”

“Explosion originated from sublevel three of the compound,” the AI reported, voice tight, clipped. “Multiple simultaneous charges. Structural collapse in progress.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Tony muttered, jets screaming as he dove through the wall of smoke.

“Stark to Rogers,” he barked, flipping to the jet comm. “Facility’s going up. I’m going in. Tell Banner to prep for burns, shrapnel, and—shit, just prep for everything. Natasha, Clint, and Wilson are still inside.”

Steve’s voice came in immediately, sharp and clear. “Copy. We’re en route. Tony, Murdock is in there too.”

Tony clenched his jaw. “Fan-fucking-tastic.”

He dropped altitude hard, stabilizers flaring against the smoke, and punched through the streets like a missile.

Steel shrieked as it twisted in on itself. Flames crawled like living things along the shattered walls, greedy and violent, and belched from the gaping wounds in the warehouse where windows once were. Shards of rebar jutted like fangs. The air stank of scorched wiring, blood, and burning plastic.

Plumes of black smoke billowed into the sky, turning dusk into midnight. The earth rumbled with fresh explosions—deep, bone-shaking thuds from somewhere in the substructure.

And Iron Man dropped from the sky like an avenging god.

Tony hit the scorched pavement with a blast of repulsors, landing hard enough to crack the concrete beneath his boots. His HUD was screaming—temperature spikes, structural failure, airborne particulates off the damn charts. The place was seconds from full collapse. And there was no comms. No voices in his ear. No signal from Nat. No ping from Clint.

He punched through the north wall just as a support beam collapsed in front of him, slamming into the floor with a burst of sparks. Concrete dust rained from the ceiling. Sirens—real ones, city-side—were already starting to wail in the distance, but they were background noise. His focus was singular.

Because beneath it all—buried under levels of heat and rubble—life signs.

 “FRIDAY—triangulate the largest heat source not on fire.”

“Got it. Northwest wing—lower stairwell. Structural integrity failing in 8 minutes.”

“That’s more time than I need.”

He dove.

The suit contracted around him, plating adjusting for close-quarter flight. Flames licked the edges of his thrusters as he plummeted through the remains of a blown-out roof, shielding raised. He punched through a sheet of debris, shoved a slab of concrete aside with a repulsor blast, and landed in what used to be a hallway.

His boots splashed through ankle-deep water—sprinkler runoff mixed with blood and coolant. The ceiling bulged ominously above him. Every step closer was like wading into a furnace.

The building groaned around him like a dying animal—steel warped, concrete cracked, fire biting through every seam. The heat was so thick it made the HUD glitch at the corners. Warnings flashed across his display: Structural instability. Toxic smoke levels rising. Threat of collapse imminent.

He ignored all of it.

“FRIDAY, locate Natasha, Clint, Matt, and Wilson,” he barked. No response. Not really a surprise—he wasn’t running full systems. Hadn’t thought of turning them back on before diving into an engulfed building. This op had been off-grid from the start. Great idea in theory. Suicidal in practice. No comms. No drones.

Just him. Too late. Too reckless to realize he was sending his teammates into a trap.

He powered through the wreckage anyway—stepping over fallen girders, debris, and the blackened remnants of whatever lab Carter had been holed up in. He was halfway down the main corridor when he caught the flicker—movement through the smoke. Thermal signatures, faint but active. Three men. Armed.

Tony’s systems targeted instinctively. He hesitated—not Nat. Not Clint. Not Daredevil. Different heat signatures. These guys were tall. Broad. Moving with the smug confidence of assholes who thought they were on top.

They were heading toward the rear tunnel. The only one not yet swallowed by fire. Tony’s eyes narrowed.

He swerved right, shoulder-slamming through a half-collapsed wall, cutting through the concrete like a scalpel.

He landed like a meteor on the other side.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

The floor cracked under the suit’s weight, metal screaming as he powered up a repulsor blast and stepped through the collapsing corridor—faceplate locking onto the three men stumbling through the smoke.

They were armed. Black tactical gear. Covered in dust and blood.

Mercs.

Carter’s people.

The taller one lifted a rifle and he swung it up towards Tony, finger firing towards the safety lock.

Wrong move.

Tony vaporized it. A white-hot repulsor shot took the gun—and part of the man’s arm—with it. The scream echoed like music.

“Try that again,” Tony growled, stepping closer. The flames backlit him like a demon out of a myth. “Go on. Give me an excuse.”

The second man– skinny, short– froze, blood running down his temple. The third—older, heavier—raised his hands, breathing hard.

“Back off,” he spat. “We’re getting out. That place is coming down—”

Tony didn’t blink. “You work for Carter.”

The man hesitated.

Another wrong move.

Tony’s voice dropped. “Where is he?”

The man sneered, and the broken edge of a laugh escaped him. “Dead, probably. Or buried. You’re wasting time—”

Tony stepped forward and grabbed him by the vest, slamming him against the cracked wall so hard it splintered. “You don’t get to waste my time. You’re going to tell me what the hell this operation was. Or I’m going to start peeling answers out of you one rib at a time.”

The injured one coughed, still clutching his ruined arm, face twisted with agony. “Well I’ll be damned. Stark, right? You’re that rich asshole who’s always running clean-up for the spider brat.”

Tony’s blood ran cold.

“What did you say?”

“I said,” the man coughed again, grinning through blood-streaked teeth, “you’re the one who cleans up after that little spider bitch. Skinny little shit. Red suit, big eyes, mouth that doesn’t shut up? Kicked like a damn mule. Didn’t help him in the end, though.”

Tony’s hand snapped out—a gauntleted fist slamming the man to the ground with a crunch of bone and armor.

“It was you?” Tony snarled.

The older one laughed. Laughed.

“We were wondering if you’d show,” He said, gun tapping casually against his thigh. “Figured you’d come sniffing around once the kid stopped breathing.”

“You left a kid in pieces,” Tony said, voice low. Controlled. Deadly. “Fractured skull. Broken ribs.”

The short one smirked. “Yeah? He cry for you? Bet he did.”

“Begged like a little bitch,” said the tall one, still clutching at his destroyed arm. “Made it better.”

That was the last thing he said.

Tony’s repulsor fired—center mass. Full charge.

A shockwave of light and plasma hit him square in the chest and obliterated him—no scream, no chance. Just a blackened outline scorched into the concrete.

The others raised their weapons too slowly.

The skinny one got a blast to the knee—he dropped screaming, gun clattering. 

The third man turned to run.

He didn’t make it three steps.

Tony was already airborne, slamming him into the opposite wall with enough force to crack the concrete. He wheezed, tried to reach for a weapon— repulsors blasted the gun out of the man’s hands and shattered his arms in the same motion. He screamed. Tony backhanded him through a flaming wall, bones crunching. Still he tried to get up. Tried to crawl. Tony flew straight into him, caught him mid-crawl, and slammed him against a support pillar hard enough to cave in the back of his skull.

The injured one was dragging himself away—half-blind, half-crawling, begging now.

“You think that makes you tough?” Tony’s voice came through the helmet modulated and razor-sharp. “Beating a kid half to death in an alley?”

“Please—please—I didn’t touch him—I didn’t—”

Tony’s thrusters flared. He caught the man by the back of the neck, slammed him into the wall, and pinned him there. Concrete cracked under the force. Flames licked up the walls beside them. The man choked, clawing at the metal hand crushing his throat.

“Bullshit.”

“I was—he—Carter said—!”

Tony stared down, faceplate glowing with firelight.

“Carter told you to?” Tony snarled. He slammed him again into the wall, hard enough to collapse a pipe.

The man nodded.

“Then you die with him.”

The man gurgled, coughing blood.

He raised his palm.

The last thing the man saw was a burning gold sun.

BOOM.

Silence.

Smoke and blood drifted through the corridor. Three bodies. No witnesses. No mercy.

He wasn’t here for vengeance. Not anymore.

He was here to finish it.

It was only the rising scream of the fire that pulled him back. The ceiling caved in across the hall. The walls were going. He was down to seconds.

He stood.

All three men lay in ruin. Ash, blood, fire.

Punishment didn’t exist for people like them. Not in courtrooms. Not on paper.

But Peter would sleep easier now.

“I have located the others,” Friday finally said, voice hushed and choppy. “Clint, Matt, and Natasha. Alive. East wing. 20 meters. Sam has exited the building already.”

Tony turned, face unreadable beneath the helmet—and walked out of the inferno, the last of the flames curling after him like a curse broken too late.

——🕷️——

Somewhere behind them, the walls shuddered—a low, seismic groan deep in the foundation. Then came the first blast. A boom that didn’t echo so much as pressurize the air, turning oxygen into a weapon. The second blast came soon after. The lights flickered. The hallway buckled. And Matt Murdock felt it all.

He was thrown backwards against a wall so hard the world went black for a second despite the flames around them. Still, he staggered to his feet, clenching his teeth so hard they could break.

“Move!” Natasha barked, dragging Don Carter by one arm down the main corridor. Her side was bleeding—wet and hot under the torn seam of her tac suit—but she didn’t stop.

Clint was at Matt’s side immediately, one arm looped around his ribs to keep him upright as they began to run, stumbling over debris, coughing through the rising smoke.

“I told you he’d blow the damn place!” Clint choked out.

“Yeah, well, hindsight’s twenty-twenty.” Matt growled.

“Irony noted.”

Flames licked along the ceiling tiles ahead, painting the hallway in orange strobe flashes. The whole corridor was cracked open at the seams—wires dangling, beams sagging, fire hissing through the ductwork. Sirens blared from somewhere deep inside, muffled by the layers of concrete now warping in heat.

And then—through the smoke—shouts.

Armed guards. The remnants of Wolfe’s hired crew. Trapped inside like rats. Cornered. Desperate. And still deadly.

They emerged from the next hallway intersection—two, then three, then five of them. Gas masks. Assault rifles. Red aiming lasers cutting through the smoke.

Natasha didn’t break stride.

She dropped Carter, pivoted mid-run, and unleashed hell.

Twin pistols up. Two shots—crack-crack—and the lead guard fell with a scream, visor shattered. Another lunged forward and got a boot to the throat so hard his spine hit the wall first. She rolled into the next, disarmed him in a blink, flipped the rifle into her shoulder and unloaded down the corridor into the last two.

“Keep moving!” she barked, voice raw from smoke, “There’s bound to be more coming to rescue Carter.”

Matt didn’t wait. He could hear every breath, every footstep, the desperate shuffle of enemy boots over concrete—he knew where they were before they turned the corner. He shoved off Clint’s shoulder and dove forward, grabbing the edge of a collapsed steel door and using it to hurl himself at the nearest guard.

CRACK.

His billy club snapped across a wrist. Then a knee. Then an elbow. The man went down screaming—and Matt kept going, stumbling and limping and dodging blind through a hall that was actively trying to kill him.

Another explosion hit. Somewhere above. The ceiling fractured. Smoke poured in like floodwater. Matt had lost count of how many explosions had been set off.

Clint coughed hard, arrow nocked even though he couldn’t see five feet in front of him. “I’ve got two coming left!”

“Not anymore,” Matt rasped, grabbing one and slamming him into a wall.

Clint spun and shot the arrow anyway—explosive tip. It caught a third guard mid-charge and blew him into the far wall in a spray of sparks and fire.

The corridor was coming down.

“Come on!” Natasha roared, grabbing Carter again—half-dragging, half-lifting. “He’s out cold! We have seconds!”

Another guard lunged from the smoke—wild, desperate, reeking of sweat and gunpowder. Natasha didn’t slow. She twisted, ducked the rifle swing, and stabbed him twice in the side with a retractable blade before kicking him back into the flames.

“Go!”

They ran.

Over collapsed beams, under hanging wires, through a door already blackening with smoke. The walls trembled with another internal blast. A floor vent blew its cover loose and fire erupted behind them, chasing them down the tunnel like a tidal wave.

Matt could barely breathe. Clint was coughing blood. Natasha was limping and pale and still dragging that bastard like a woman possessed.

They turned a corner so fast they nearly ran straight into the gold and red Iron Man suit.

——🕷️——

Tony’s heart stuttered.

Clint was first—half-carrying, half-dragging Matt Murdock, who looked like death warmed over and reheated. Blood soaked the side of his suit. His face was set in a grimace of pain, but his jaw was clenched like a vice.

Behind them, Natasha staggered into view. She was dragging a limp body by the collar—Carter. His face was a swollen mess. Unconscious. Maybe dead.

Natasha looked up at him through the smoke, her face streaked with soot, blood caked at her temple. “Took your sweet time.”

Tony didn’t bother with a quip. He extended both arms. “Hand him over.”

She hauled Carter toward him, and Tony snagged the body in a magnetic field, strapping it tight against his left side. “This bastard better still be breathing.”

“He is,” she growled. “Unfortunately.”

Clint coughed hard, waving away a cloud of smoke. “We got more bombs down here?”

“Facility’s rigged to fall in on itself. More charges are cooking.” Tony scanned the crumbling ceiling. “We need to move now.”

Matt didn’t speak, but he nodded once, jaw locked, sweat pouring down his face. Clint tightened his grip on him, jaw twitching.

Tony turned, crouched slightly. “All of you—on me.”

Clint slung Matt over one shoulder like a sack of flour, grimacing with the weight, and stumbled forward. Natasha planted herself at Tony’s other side, pistol still in her grip, eyes sweeping the ruins even now.

Tony fired his thrusters just enough to lift them clear of the debris, propelling forward at a crawl. The ceiling buckled behind them. A steel support cracked with a shriek.

They burst through a half-destroyed stairwell, Tony bracing them with forcefields as they ascended. Every level collapsed seconds after they cleared it.

Then—finally—air.

He shot up through the roof, concrete bursting in their wake, and into the smoke-choked sky. The rest of the facility imploded behind them, folding in like a dying lung, flames licking at the edges of Tony’s heels.

They were out.

Alive.

Barely.

Tony landed in the clearing fifty yards from the wreckage and dropped to one knee, setting Carter’s limp form down like a sack of garbage. Natasha hit the dirt beside him, gasping, chest heaving. Clint dropped to one knee with Matt beside him, swearing under his breath.

Matt collapsed beside him, his head against the dirt, listening to the fire consume the place behind them.

Natasha crawled forward until she could pull Carter clear of the blast radius. Then she slumped back, elbows trembling, gaze locked on the smoke curling out behind them like some demon's hand.

Tony didn’t speak. Just stood there a moment, visor folding back, smoke trailing off his armor in waves. Steve and Bruce were running towards them already.

Tony finally exhaled, slow and sharp.

It was over, for now.