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The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers.
Three teams Fury worked hard to get together. The Avengers and Fantastic Four were the easiest to coordinate but with past tensions between the X-Men and they were more reluctant to compromise.
Surprisingly, Spider-Man was the reason Scott Summers was willing to hear the Director out. The man owed him one and he cashed it in so Fury would stop hounding him to join the Avengers.
So here they were. All of the teams in one large meeting room discussing how to coordinate around each other in the future.
“What about all those vigilantes? I don’t see any of them here?” Stark asked, crossing his arms.
“Yeah, where is Spidey? I assumed when he asked me to talk to you, he’d be here.” Scott added.
“Spider-Man’s a mutant?” Reed asked.
“No, he’s a mutate.” Jean answered.
“We owed him a favor,” Scott explained. Stark snorted, “What he do? Stand-up for a birthday party?”
“We consult him from time to time in regards to biochemical and technological issues.” Mccoy said sheepishly.
Tony reckons that would be his face if he’d admitted to going to Spider-Man for help.
“I could probably get him here.” Scott said, “How?” Fury asked. Scott started shuffling for his phone and started typing. After a couple of seconds it vibrated in his hand and a victorious smile was stretched on his face.
“He comes by Pym technologies to work with Hank every few weeks and he’s been nagging the guy to tell him how he managed to let me talk to ants. He wants to do the same with Spiders.” Scott explained.
“So you told him what? You’d help?” Tony asked.
“No. If he can’t figure it out I definitely can’t. I told him I’d let him update my suit. He taught himself the shrinking technology.”
“Spider-Man can shrink?” Steve asked. “He doesn’t use it, he only figured it out as a ‘fuck you’ to Pym.” He chuckled; “ I actually don’t think they like each other.”
“Who would? That little shit is annoying as hell.” Said Wolverine.
Both Steve and Tony were on alert around him. The man seemed to dismiss everyone around him that wasn’t in his own team. He was quiet and gruff during every discussion.
“You know him?” Natasha asked, “What’s he like?”
“He is the most aggravating, flippy little freak I've ever met. All he does is talk and god forbid you work with him. Every joke is like getting stabbed in the ears.”
“That hilarious coming from the human equivalent of a pincushion. Also i’m loving the new haircut, it’s less emo and more angsty divorcee.” Spider-Man entered and passed Wolverine with a thwack to the head that was immediately met with a hit to the arm.
“Great, the insectoid fuck is here.”
“Spiders are arachnids, you rabbit ferret.”
“Can we please have five minutes without you two going at it?” Strom demanded more than asked.
Logan scowled and Spidey put his hands up in surrender. The only seat left was next to Johnny Storm who was the youngest of the bunch at twenty-three. He’d been sullen and miserable throughout the entire meeting, obviously wanting to be anywhere else. He hasn’t been around someone his age without them fawning all over him since he’d gotten his powers.
“Spider-Man,” The vigilante put out his hand. The hand Johnny just stared at incredulously rather than taking it.
“Well, I tried.” The masked man mumbled, putting it back down.
“I thought you could speak to spiders.” Fury accused. “That was temporary after the whole magic interdenominational demon fight. I like Dr. Strange but I'd rather he not alter my powers with magic.”
“Was that the fight where Johnny lit Mafisto on fire?” Logan asked.
“What?” Sue piped up looking at her brother like he’d done something.
“Not him.” Spider-man clarified, “Ghost Rider.”
At the blank stares he was getting he asked, “Does anyone in here know Ghost Rider?”
A couple seconds of uncomfortable silence and Wolverine and Spider-man sharing a look that even with the mask showed frustration.
“Moonknight?” Spidey asked.
“Blade?” Logan asked this time, staring at his team with a surprised glint in his eye.
“Any of the Eternals?” Back to Spidey.
“Are these even real people?” Clint asked.
“Christ's sake. Fury you know of all of these people. You didn’t want to tell your team about Superheroes outside of the U.S?”
“If we don’t know about them they’re probably not that strong.” Tony said, in an uncharacteristic moment of defending one eyed willy.
“Moonknight has beaten Thor in a fight.”
“He cheated.” Logan interjected.
“How is taking Myjneir cheating?”
“Why are you defending him? You don’t even like him.”
“I like him! I just can’t stand Jake.”
“When did they fight?” Rhodey asked. “Ten months ago.” Spider-man and Wolverine answered in unison.
“Can we go back to Fury not telling anyone anything? It's not like these people are hiding, most of them don’t even have secret identities.” Spidey huffed.
“How do you know all of them?” Tony asked in the most condescending way he’d ever heard and he just had a conversation with Stephen not ten minutes ago.
“Sometimes we have overlapping cases and it’s easier to work together than having a pissing contest that just wastes time.”
“You said that a lot of them were outside the U.S. How come we never see you on international news?” Natasha asked. “They’re all really careful to steer clear of the media, to not give the guys their fighting a hint. I try to respect it."
“He,” He points to Logan, “Doesn’t.”
“Fuck did I do?”
“You got banned from Romania and Dracula is still pissed at me.”
“You did help me blow up the castle.”
“I thought you were using the bomb on the Nora Corps or something! You weren’t clear on the phone and last time I checked you were in space.”
“Also, why would you tell the vampiric fuck I helped you detonate it?”
“Why’d you tell Druig about me and Makkrai?”
“I needed to get him out of the village… and it was really funny.” Spidey answered and Logan pointed to him in a ‘see’ gesture.
“ Dracula , Dracula?” Scott asked and The Falcon snorted at the nods, “Now they’re just messing with us.”
“I wish we were, vampires suck.” Logan huffed.
“I’m pretty sure that’s racist.” Spidey said.
“You literally just called him a ‘vampiric fuck’.”
“So? I call Jack Sparky, doesn’t mean I hate werewolves.”
“He’s tried to kill you several times.” Logan reminds.
“If I didn’t like everyone that tried to kill me, my contact list would be two thirds smaller.”
“Can we get back on track?!” Fury damn near shouts.
“No, this is really interesting.” Cap shrugs.
“No, Fury’s rights. I have plans and want to know why I was called.”
“Everyone here has recently had issues with overlapping in our endeavors.” Storm starts, “We’re all here in an attempt of our own inter-agency cooperation.”
Spider-man raised his hand and only spoke when Storm motioned to him, “Why am I here though? No offense but I avoid you two–” He motioned to the side consisting of the Fantastic four and the Avengers, “Like the plague. And we’ve worked together fine for years.” He meant the last part to the X-Men. “Why are you avoiding us?” The Captain asked.
“I avoid the Avengers because Fury won’t leave me alone about joining and I avoid the Four because– again no offense– you guys are walking collateral damage. And JJJ would love to blame any damage you do on me.”
“And what damage is that?” Sue asked, more than a little testily. “Fires, smashed cars, whole blocks leveled.”
“There’s footage of you lifting a car and beating a guy with it.” The thing–Ben added. “I was fighting six enhanced people at the same time. You guys leave extreme damage for things like armored car robberies."
“We stop crimes,” Johnny states, “It’s not our fault if things get messy.”
“I agree with that to an extent, but if I'm fighting average criminals I go into that fight prepared to not touch them.”
“You don’t touch the people you fight?” Reed asked, “I find that hard to believe.”
“After the first three years I stopped throwing punches. It’s more work to pull punches then it is to hit as hard as I can and dodging and webbing them up is much easier; unless I'm fighting someone that I don’t need to hold back as much.” He shrugged. “How strong are you exactly?” Stark asked.
“Not sure, I can lift a few dozen tons.”
“He knocked out the Hulk once,” Bruce supplied.
“I’m still on the whole, ‘vampires are real’ part of this conversation.” Wanda interjected. “Me too.” Clint added.
“This is exactly what I mean.” Fury starts, loud enough to stop anyone from interrupting. “There are so many different things and people out there doing the same thing as us, but nobody knows each other. The reason I didn’t tell you about them is because I wanted you to build a community with each other before the rest of them.”
“Spider, this is why I've been trying to get you on the team. You know almost everybody. Hell, you spent the weekend with the Guardians of the galaxy and they aren’t even earth based.”
“I didn’t mean to. We got arrested.”
“It's still pretty impressive that someone your age has these many connections.” Logan laughed.
“What age?” Fury asked, latching onto any information on Spidey that he could get.
“Lo, shut u-”
“Twenty-two if I remember correctly.”
“This is why Kurt dumped you,” Spider-Man huffed and chuckled at the low growl coming from the Furry man.
Silence.
Not silence. Just the sound of everyone in the room doing quick math and not liking the results. “Son of a bitch! You said you were twenty-two eight years ago!”
“I lied. Obviously.”
“You started when you were fourteen! Dude, I shot you six years ago! I shot a child. I was wondering why Daredevil was so pissed, he broke my jaw.” Clint cried.
“This why are you and Quake so close?” Fury asked.
“No, we just find it funny to hack into servers of government agencies and leave eachother coded messages.”
“You’ve done this during highschool?” Johnny asked, looking like it was the worst possible thing to happen.
“You’re a kid and you're giving us tips?” Ben scoffed. “I’ve still been at this longer than you’ve been a rock.” The rocky man barked out a laugh.
“Okay,” Johnny said slowly, pointing between Spidey and Wolverine. “So just to recap—vampires are real, Some loser named Moonknight cheated in a fight against Thor, Spider-Man is somehow friends with intergalactic outlaws, and also he’s been doing this since puberty?”
“And I’m the problem,” Logan grunted.
“You are the problem,” Peter muttered, crossing his arms.
Before Logan could retort, Sue cleared her throat, arms crossed, still eyeing Spider-Man warily. “You’re seriously telling me you operate with no oversight, no backup, and your plan is just… show up, make it up as you go?”
“Not just make it up. I have backup plans… usually up to F. H if the multiverse is involved.”
“That’s not comforting,” Lang said flatly.
Peter shrugged. “I mean, it works.”
“For now,” Reed said, rubbing his temples. “Until it doesn’t.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Storm said, tone authoritative, “To stop this before it doesn’t work anymore.”
Everyone glanced around the room, the reality of what they were trying to do finally starting to settle in. Heroes who’d never been in the same room—some of whom barely acknowledged the others existed—were now supposed to operate as a team. Or, at the very least, a support system.
“So what, we all swap numbers now?” Clint asked.
“No,” Fury said, “You’re all going on a retreat.”
Silence.
Peter tilted his head. “Like a team-building retreat?”
“Yes.”
“Fury, no offense, but you put Wolverine, the Hulk, and me in a cabin for more than twelve hours and I guarantee someone gets stabbed.”
“Probably you,” Logan grunted.
“Exactly,” Peter replied. “I’m the fun one.”
“You’re the problem,” multiple people said at once.
Rhodey groaned. “Can’t we just make a group chat like normal people?”
“We have a group chat,” Peter said. “It’s just me, Wade, and Daredevil.”
Tony blinked. “Wade is Deadpool.” Peter Explained.
“Oh god,” Sam muttered.
“Fury,” Natasha said, leaning forward, “Maybe we don’t start with a retreat. Maybe we just… try not to punch each other in the next week.”
“Low bar,” Logan grumbled.
“Attainable,” Wanda countered.
Peter raised his hand again. “Can I be excused if the retreat involves trust falls?”
“No,” Fury said.
“Then I’m bringing my glider.”
“You don’t have a glider,” Scott pointed out.
“I do now. Thanks Goblin.”
Fury muttered something under his breath and finally stood. “Meeting adjourned. I’ll see you all there.”
As the heroes stood and began breaking into smaller, confused clusters of conversation, Logan passed Peter and muttered, “You still owe me a new bike.”
Peter patted his arm. “And you still owe me an explanation on what happened in Madrid.”
“I thought we agreed never to talk about that.”
“Oh we did. But I didn’t agree agree. I was extremely concussed.”
Wolverine growled and walked off, and Peter turned toward Johnny, who was still sitting and processing.
“Welcome to the club,” Spidey said, voice breaking as he held back a yawn.
Johnny sighed, finally shaking Spider-Man’s hand. “You’re weird, man.”
“Takes one to know one, Torch.”
And just like that, chaos had an event planned.
—
Fucking hell Peter didn’t even want to explain how he’d ended up in a luxury cabin with Tony Stark and Johnny Strom.
“This is so unbelievably bullshit.” Strom huffed after checking the locked door for the hundredth time. Stark, upon realizing that it was an old-fashioned vault lock and there was no technological way of getting out, sat down and was watching Desperate Housewives. He was mildly annoyed at the situation but not enough to find a way out. No one told them that when they were assigned to their groups they wouldn’t be able to leave.
Peter didn’t even try and was currently having an after nap snack.
“Does this really not bother either of you?” He asked.
“Nope.” Stark sighed.
“Not Really,” Peter said around his sandwich. Stark grimaced at his response and focused his attention back on the TV.
“This is imprisonment.” Johnny added.
“Being locked in a cave in Afghanistan is imprisonment. This is a vacation.”
“He’s right–” Spidey agreed. “I mean– we’re not being waterboarded. So this is a win.” Peter gobbled down the last few bites ignoring the look of mild concern and general disgust coming from the youngest Fantastic Four member. “So! Stark, since we’re locked in a room together I was hoping you’d answer some of my questions?” Spidey asked, not bothering to pull his mask down enough as he vaulted over the counter and leaped onto the couch. The billionaire rolled his eyes and noticed that the flamethrower moved from the door to the loveseat.
“No, I’m not building you a suit.” He deadpanned.
The spider frowned. “I have a shtick to maintain. Getting into a mech suit will just ruin my aesthetic.” Now Tony turned to him, figuring he won’t go away until he’s been answered. “Just ask.”
“Okay! How do you keep the arc reactor from overheating in the Mark 85 suit? Is it some kind of nano-venting system or do you just ignore OSHA? And, Is your HUD custom coded or based on an existing OS? Because I keep getting glitches when I integrate Stark-UI with my neural interface. It became such a pain to work with. I ended up writing my own code system, but if something goes wrong when I can’t access my suit I’ll be in the dark. Also– If I wanted to build a motion-detection system using echolocation and infrared in tandem, do you think I’d need a secondary processor to handle the lag?”
Tony stared at him for a good long while, Peter noticed he made the same face a pet owner would when their dog did a trick they didn’t teach them.
“I’m not answering any of that until you tell me how you learned enough code to write your own neural interface at, what, twelve?”
“I was fourteen,” Peter said sighed, sitting cross-legged on the couch arm, “and technically I didn’t write all of it. I repurposed a Stark drone’s OS and Frankensteined it into my suit HUD.”
“I feel so safe,” Johnny muttered, sinking into the loveseat. Trying his damnedest to avoid more annoying ass science talk.
Suddenly, a loud clang echoed through the cabin, followed by a mechanical hiss. The lights flickered, and the TV cut to static. Stark let out a long, theatrical sigh.
“I was watching that, you know.” He said to nobody in particular.
The cabin jolted once—violently—throwing Tony halfway off the couch and Peter fully off the armrest. Stark stood, brushing off imaginary lint.
“…Okay, that’s new,” Tony muttered, slowly turning to the others. “And by new, I mean horrifying.”
Peter jumped up and instantly stuck to the ceiling. “Why did the deluxe cabin just go full Resident Evil?”
“I thought this was a bonding exercise,” Johnny growled, his hands lighting up in defense. “You said this was a bonding exercise!”
“I said that because I thought it was a bonding exercise,” Tony replied. “You think I would have voluntarily trapped myself in a glorified IKEA showroom with two hyperactive fire hazards?”
Peter tilted his head. “Hey, rude.”
But before any of them could respond further, the TV sparked, the screen twisting into a corrupted video feed. A voice came through, scrambled and mechanical—almost mocking:
“Intrusion detected. Sector lockdown initiated. Begin asset containment protocol.” A voice called from the walls.
“…So not Fury,” Peter said.
“Nope,” Tony confirmed, stepping slowly toward the center of the room. “That was my old AI.”
“You brought a malfunctioning AI to a cabin in the woods?” Johnny asked, already heating up.
“It wasn’t malfunctioning when I uploaded it. It was just a retired prototype for of JARVIS. I may have left it running for environmental control. You know. Lights. Temp. Coffee machine. I was planning on relaxing and he’s relaxing”
“You programmed your coffee machine with asset containment protocols?!” Peter asked.
“This is relaxing to you?!” Johnny shouted.
“Asset containment includes fire,” Tony said, side-eyeing Johnny. “You’re welcome.”
Suddenly, the fireplace exploded with heat and a stream of red plasma sprayed from the vents across the room.
Peter web-zipped to yank Johnny out of the way. “Okay, so the house is trying to kill us. Awesome. Totally normal weekend.”
Tony’s armor started deploying in pieces, auto-attaching from a suitcase. “Change of plans.We’re surviving my homicidal ex-AI.”
The lights shut and shifted to red as the room began shifting, rotating as the cozy rustic interior peeled away in places to reveal cold, blackened steel and surveillance panels.“Why does the vacation home have trap doors?!” Peter shouted, webbing a rapidly closing hatch before it could cut off their exit to the kitchen.
“Fury’s my coworker not my buddy,” Tony muttered while accessing a half-burnt console.
The AI’s voice came back through the intercom.
“Anomalous variables detected. Threat level: unstable. Neutralization protocols engaged.”
A hatch opened in the floor. A sleek quadrupedal bot slithered out—spider-like, shiny, and very much not friendly. “Okay, nope!” Peter yelled, immediately webbing it to the ceiling. It sliced through the webbing with ease.
“Just one of these?” Johnny asked, flames starting to build.
Then three more popped out from the hallway walls.
“Of course not,” Tony deadpanned. “Welcome to SHIELD Cabin: Murder Edition.”
“Alright, new plan!” Tony called out as they dodged a blast from one of the bots. “There should be a breaker panel in the basement. I’ll try to shut down the core systems!”
“Why does it have a basement?! It’s a cabin!” Johnny yelled, throwing fireballs and managing to vaporize one of the bots. “This isn’t a cabin, it’s a maze of death!” Peter vaulted up to a beam, clinging upside-down and blasting web grenades. “I’ll get to the mainframe I saw upstairs. If I can hijack the security grid, I might be able to confuse the AI and force it into lockdown mode.”
“I’ll stay here and distract the death-roombas, shall I?!” Johnny barked.
“You’re fireproof and durable, you’ll be fine!” Tony shouted as he disappeared through a trapdoor.
“I hate you assholes!” Johnny shouted to the empty air, glad no one was around to see his hair flame up in frustration.
Peter skidded into what used to be a library and now a full-on surveillance den with a glowing red terminal matching with the rest of the fuckass house. The AI activated defense initiatives, but Peter slipped through them with ridiculous acrobatics and overloaded them with electrocuting webs.
“Okay, okay, okay— oh.” Peter stared at the big red button with ‘STOP’ labeled above it. “Be so fucking for real.” He grumbled as pressed it.
he mumbled to himself. “Remind me to never trust secret agencies with any décorating help.” as the room returned to normal.
Downstairs, Johnny barreled into the kitchen, now fully engulfed in flames with several melted spiders trailing him. Peter guessed there was a stop button for each floor and tried not to look at the terrifying amalgamations of melting spider-exoskeletons. Rather then tell the creepy little fuckers were he was he opted to crawl on the ceiling to his destination.
Johnny ducked behind the counter. “I swear to God, if I survive this, I’m making Reed make me a portable EMP gun.”
Tony, down in the basement, reached the core beneath the floor—kicking open the panel and yanking wires like a madman. “Just a little longer, fireboy, come on…”
Suddenly, all the lights flared white-hot and then—dead silence.
Then: soft jazz.
“…What just happened?” Johnny asked.
Spidey’s voice came from the ceiling, “Big. Red. Button.” He explained.
Back on the couch, the three sat disheveled, bruised, and now somehow sicker of each other.
“Worst. Bonding Activity. Ever,” Johnny groaned.
Spidey just sipped his latte and muttered, “Still better than trust falls.”
After a second of silence with the exception of the arachnids incessant slurping– he broke.
“So... now that the fake emergency has passed, I have more questions. Like how you signaled to your suit to piece together mid-air. That was so sick”
Johnny flopped face-down into the armrest with a muffled scream.
Tony just sighed. “I miss Afghanistan.”