Chapter Text
Midtown High School: Chem Lab 115G — 11:00 AM
The only sounds in the classroom were the steady scratching of pencils on paper and the occasional throat clear or stifled yawn. Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, casting a sterile glow over the room. A wall-sized periodic table watched over the whiteboard like an omniscient judge, and the smell of dry-erase markers and cheap erasers clung to the air.
“Okay, everyone, take one and pass it back,” said Mr. Harrington with a questionable dollop of black hair atop his head that Peter and Ned always assumed was a wig. The sound of slicing sheets of paper filled the room. Peter Parker sat hunched over his chemistry exam, brows furrowed and bottom lip caught between his teeth. His pencil tapped against his chin in a steady rhythm as he stared down at question twenty-six:
Question 26: A gas occupies a volume of 2.50 L at 1.00 atm pressure and 300 K temperature. What volume will it occupy at 2.00 atm and 350 K?
He exhaled through his nose and scribbled down a formula in the margin, whispering just loud enough for the people around him to think he was a little weird. “P1V1 over T1 equals P2V2 over T2…” he murmured, eyes flicking back and forth between the numbers like he was trying to make them solve themselves.
A loud commotion was heard from the busy student hallway, but Peter didn’t even blink. It’s a New York high school. There were always questionable commotions during the day. It’s probably some sketchy dude trying to blow up one of the soda machines. Peter just considered him the Midtown dealer. Still, he was in the zone—completely absorbed in the chemical formulas.
Then—BOOM.
The floor jolted beneath. The windows rattled. Overhead lights swung ominously. Half the classroom gasped as a rolling tremor passed under their feet. A low roar echoed from somewhere outside, deep and thunderous, like a distant explosion had just punched a hole in the skyline. Papers flew off desks. Someone’s backpack tumbled over. A girl screamed in the hallway.
“What the—?!” a kid near the window shouted, already up and sprinting toward the glass. Phones were out in an instant, cameras pointed at the thick, inky smoke rising into the air. It curled upward from somewhere in Brooklyn—fast, dark, and furious.
“Oh no,” Peter whispered, straightening in his seat.
Mr. Harrington stumbled toward the front of the room, hands flailing as he tried to regain order. “Everyone, back to your seats! You still have thirty minutes left! It’s probably just...construction!”
Bzzz-Bzzz.
Peter’s phone buzzed in his hoodie pocket. He fished it out under the desk, thumbs already flying across the screen.
TONY STARK [11:16 AM]
Hey, Queens. Big one. Coming in hot. Downtown Brooklyn.
Peter’s stomach sank. His leg bounced under the desk as he looked over at Ned across the aisle. Ned was already watching him, eyebrows raised. He knew that look. It was the “I have to go be Spider-Man” face.
He leaned in, voice low. “Hey. I need a distraction.”
Ned grinned like Christmas had come early. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”
Without hesitation, he flipped his beaker with a dramatic clatter, sending water and glass everywhere. At the same time, he slipped a fizzing capsule from his hoodie sleeve and dropped it into the mess.
FWOOOSH!
A plume of bright pink smoke erupted from the floor, filling the classroom in seconds. Screams pierced the air.
“OH MY GOD, WE’RE BEING GASSED!” Students stumbled over desks, coughing and waving their arms as chaos broke loose. Someone hit the fire alarm. Red lights strobed across the ceiling.
“Dude! I said a distraction! Not a lethal attack!”
“Don’t worry,” Ned said. “I got you, bro!”
Over the intercom, Mr. Harrington pulled the chemical alarm on the side of the chemistry lab, and red sirens blared throughout the campus. “Everyone out of the building!”
Sirens screamed to life. As the class stampeded toward the exit, Peter slipped out the opposite way—backpedaling toward the window. He unlatched it with a sharp click and shoved it open, letting the air rush in. He turned and gave Ned a thumbs-up.
“I owe you one!”
Ned, barely visible through the fog, gave a wheezy cough. “Don’t die!”
Peter shot him a grin. “No promises.”
Then—THWIP—he launched a web and vaulted out the window. Within seconds, he was gone, swinging high over Midtown with the skyline rushing by and smoke spiraling in the distance.
Brooklyn was calling.
And Spider-Man was on the way.
Downtown Brooklyn — 12:00 PM
The Financial District was chaos incarnate. Storefront windows were blown out, sirens screeched like they were in pain, and acrid smoke choked the skyline in oily black swirls. The once-orderly rhythm of a workday lunch hour had crumbled into shattered glass and panic. People screamed and sprinted across intersections, dodging overturned hot dog carts, sparking taxi cabs, and fire hydrants spraying jets into the sky. Somewhere near the East River, a car alarm had been blaring the same three-note loop for ten straight minutes, like a tone-deaf war cry. And right in the heart of it stood a villain who looked like a Transformer had gotten bored and taken up bodybuilding.
Graviton.
Eight feet tall, head-to-toe in clunky metallic armor. His plating pulsed faintly with violet energy, almost like a heartbeat, and strange, flickering disks spun lazily around his wrists and shoulders. Chunks of debris hovered unnaturally around him, swirling in defiance of gravity—as if the laws of physics were too scared to tell him no.
“Target is approximately eight feet tall, heavy armor plating, internal EMP generator,” Natasha’s voice came calm and steady through the comms. “Goes by ‘Graviton.’”
Clint snorted over the channel. “Didn’t we already fight a Graviton in 2007?”
“Nope,” Sam replied, wings slicing the smoke above. “That was Gravimancer.”
“Seriously, do these guys pull names from a villain baby book?” Tony added. “Location on Spider Monkey?”
“Two blocks out!” Peter’s voice chimed in. “Webbing through traffic. Side note: Brooklyn drivers? Still driving like there isn’t a giant Magneto-knockoff rampaging through downtown. These people suck!”
A ripple of thunder cracked above as Thor hurled his hammer like a baseball bat, WHAM! —sending the towering alien beast flying straight into a row of abandoned taxi cabs. The sound echoed through the street like a demolition site.
“Nice swing, Goldilocks!” Tony’s voice crackled through the comms.
“I do take pride in my aim,” Thor replied with his usual flair.
Peter swung past a parking garage that was actively collapsing on one side, dodged a rain of shattered concrete, and caught the top of a streetlamp with one hand. His feet barely grazed the metal before he launched himself into the air, soaring above the chaos. Somewhere below, he spotted Cap with his shield up like a batter at the plate, Nat and Clint flanking rooftops, and Iron Man circling above like a red-and-gold guardian angel.
“Spiderling has entered the chat,” Peter declared, flipping midair before landing beside Rhodey behind the smoldering wreck of a commuter van.
“Welcome to the party, kid,” Rhodey said.
“Kid, focus,” Tony said. “Get on his left side. Web that elbow joint. I’ll come in from above. Rhodey, cover fire from the right. We move in three—two—”
“Wait, wait, no dramatic pre-fight speech?” Peter asked, already running. “No ‘Avengers Assemble’? I’m disappointed.”
“Just move, Spider-Sass,” Tony snapped.
He dove from above, blazing in a diagonal strike. Rhodey opened up with a shoulder-mounted mini-missile that exploded just behind Graviton’s boots. Peter sprinted forward and launched a heavy web straight at the villain’s left arm.
“Stark, I’ve got a shot,” Nat said through comms.
“Hold for my mark,” Tony replied. “Pete, get that left arm. Servo joint near the elbow. I’ll go high, you go low.”
“Copy that. A classic Stark and Parker pincer attack. Let’s make it weirdly graceful.”
The team moved. Tony shot forward, a blur of red and gold roaring. Peter flung a thick web line straight at Graviton’s exposed knee joint, yanked hard—and the villain staggered.
Then—TINGLING. SPI-DEY SENSE.
Too fast. Too sharp.
Something gleamed in the corner of his vision—metal, moving with precision that shouldn’t have belonged to a walking refrigerator. An electrified blade slid from Graviton’s gauntlet, energy crackling along the edge like a neon buzzsaw. And it was headed straight for Tony’s exposed side as he flew too close.
“Tony—LOOK OUT!” Rhodey shouted.
Peter didn’t think. He just moved. “NO!”
Peter fired a new web line at Tony’s shoulder and yanked with every ounce of strength he had, diverting the older hero’s trajectory at the last possible second. Tony veered left, narrowly avoiding the strike—but Peter? His momentum went wild. He flew sideways at a brutal angle, web line still taut, the ground blurring beneath him.
CRASH. Just as the team started regrouping— SCREEEEECH.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Peter said, eyes wide. “Guys, he’s charging up—!”
“EVERYONE DOWN!” Steve bellowed. “HIT THE DECK!”
BOOOOOOM!
The explosion ripped through the street like a thunderclap, shaking windows for blocks. The shockwave sent rubble and dust in all directions, like a sunflower of destruction. It was deafening. Fire licked up through the cracks in the pavement, a massive shockwave throwing smoke into the air like a tidal wave.
One second—chaos. A bullet of light —pure and fast—ripped through the smoke. Its target was unclear. Did it miss them entirely?
Peter didn’t move. He tumbled through debris and splintered wood, until finally—BANG. Peter landed flat on his back, hard, the wind punched out of his lungs. The floor cracked beneath him. For a long second, all he could hear was the ringing in his ears. Muffled, like someone stuffed the world in cotton. The suit’s HUD flickered. Smoke wafted through the broken ceiling. A pipe above hissed steam. Somewhere nearby, a cracked fluorescent bulb flickered ominously overhead. Glass exploded around him like a thousand tiny razors. He hit the ground hard, skidding across cracked tile and loose debris, dust choking the air. A heavy slab of concrete landed nearby with a sickening crunch.
Then—silence.
Cough. Cough.
“Is everyone okay?” Rhodey called, scanning the field. “Is anyone hurt?”
“Kid?!” Tony’s voice cracked over the comms, the panic raw. No response. Only the hissing of a broken steam pipe. The crackle of loose electricity. The faint groan of a half-collapsed ceiling above the wreckage.
“Hey Queens! Do you copy?” Cap said over the comm.
Tracking his location, the others came down to find him buried under a pile of concrete and cement. “Kid?” Tony said as they tried to uncover him. “Kid? Answer me!”
Tony knelt beside the heap of shattered debris. His HUD scanned for heat signatures—there. Weak, but alive. With brute strength, Tony ripped away chunks of drywall, rebar, and cement blocks until—“I got him!”
There. A glimpse of red and blue. Peter was unconscious, his face pale and bloodied, his body twisted beneath a fallen concrete pillar.
Silence.
Then— cough. Static. Then a groggy voice.
“...Okay… so... that hurt.”
“Geez.. kid,” Tony breathed in relief.
“Ughhh… okay… yep… that definitely rearranged a few ribs…” Peter slowly turned his head, blinking behind cracked lenses. “Fun fact… bricks are not soft. In case anyone was wondering.”
“You alright?” Rhodey asked.
“Yeah..” Peter groaned. “Never better.
Tony helped the kid stand up due to his shattered leg, that is, until—he felt a pain in his side—excruciating. Peter stumbled back two steps, swaying like a puppet whose strings had snapped as he lolled against Tony’s frame.
“Umm… guys?” Peter’s voice came through, quiet, trembling. “I think I got… hit…”
Tony looked down as Peter’s gloved hand hovered inches from the smoking hole in his suit and clutched his side, where scorched red cloth clung to broken armor plates—and underneath, a spreading bloom of dark, wet red. Then his knees gave way, and his eyes began to roll back.
“KID!” Tony’s voice cracked like glass, and his heart sank like iron. Tony ripped off his gauntlet, tossing it aside, and pressed his hand to Peter’s wound, trying to stem the bleeding.
Peter’s lashes fluttered. Tony held the back of the kid’s head to stabilize him.
“Stay with me, kid. Hey. Eyes on me.” Panic knifed through his chest. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., get me vitals—now.”
“Pulse weak. Blood pressure dropping. Left shoulder and upper thoracic cavity compromised. Internal bleeding suspected. Right femur fractured and shattered.”
Tony grabbed the torn suit, pressing down with his hands. “Thor—cape! Now!” he barked. Thor was already moving, yanking the red fabric off his shoulders and handing it over. Tony balled it and pressed it hard on Peter’s wound. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., we need evac! Med evac, now!”
“On it, boss. ETA is five minutes.”
Peter’s eyelids drooped. “Sorry, Mr. Stark…”
“No. No, you don’t say sorry. You don’t get to say that.” Tony’s voice faltered. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Peter’s lips trembled. “Ruined the suit again…”
Tony gave a wet, broken laugh. “Screw the suit.”
His breath came in shallow, shaky gasps. Blood was everywhere—soaking through Thor’s cape, through the seams of Tony’s trembling fingers, slick and warm and terrifyingly fast. It spilled in pulses that matched Peter’s faltering heartbeat, turning Tony’s palms crimson and painting the pavement beneath them. The kid's eyes fluttered open, unfocused and glassy, drawn downward toward the gruesome sight of his own torn suit—fabric shredded around the smoldering wound, where blood seeped in a steady, relentless stream. His chest hitched with a sharp inhale.
“Hey. Hey. Don’t look at that. Don’t look down. Look at me. You did good, kid.” He lifted a hand and gently cradled the back of Peter’s head, guiding it away from the blood, from the horror. “Just breathe, alright?”
The kid started to go white. He looked pale.
“Kid, stay with me, alright? You’re okay.” Tony said urgently. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., what’s happening?”
“Mr. Parker is going into shock. Condition is critical.”
The faintest twitch of a smile played on Peter’s lips, even as his eyelids fluttered. And then—darkness. Tony clenched his jaw, holding the kid’s limp head. “Get me that med evac!” he shouted again, voice near breaking. “NOW!”