Chapter Text
Chapter One — The Things Buried Alive
Peter Parker’s spider-sense had never warned him with silence before.
Usually, danger arrived as noise beneath his skin. A shrill vibration at the base of his skull. A tightening behind his eyes. Invisible wires pulling every muscle in his body into readiness.
Happy Hogan’s apartment had been anything but quiet for the last several hours.
The Stark fabricator hummed steadily behind them, bathing the room in sterile blue light. Doctor Octavius’s mechanical arms shuffled and clicked whenever he moved. Max Dillon sat several metres away with the energy-draining device fixed against his chest, electricity occasionally crackling beneath his skin whenever he became irritated. Flint Marko had managed to scatter sand into places sand had absolutely no business being. May was moving equipment into a bag near the kitchen.
And Denise had been arguing with a molecular simulation for the better part of twenty minutes.
“No.”
Peter glanced sideways.
Denise frowned at the display.
“No, because that would be stupid.”
Peter blinked. “Are you arguing with the computer?”
“I’m arguing with whoever programmed the computer.”
“That was probably Tony.”
Denise paused.
Her finger hovered over the screen.
“Then I respectfully disagree with the deceased billionaire genius.”
Peter snorted.
Denise made another adjustment to the compound and watched the simulation rebuild itself.
There.
The protein structure stabilised.
Her shoulders finally dropped.
Peter looked back at the cure they had been assembling.
For the first time since Doctor Strange had locked several men from different universes beneath the Sanctum Sanctorum, the impossible problem in front of them seemed almost manageable.
Almost.
Norman could be cured.
Otto already had been.
Max could be disconnected from the energy transforming his body. Flint could become human again. Connors could become himself.
Nobody had to die.
Nobody had to be sent back to some predetermined ending simply because the universe insisted that was where their stories belonged.
Maybe Peter had been right.
Maybe May had been right.
Maybe helping them did not have to destroy everything else.
Denise shifted closer and bumped her shoulder against his.
“Hey.”
Peter looked at her.
“We’re going to fix this,” she said.
Peter swallowed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Denise gestured vaguely around the apartment. “You, Spider-Man, Tony Stark intern. Me, biotech genius, Bruce Banner protégé. May, awesome, magnificent Aunt May. Questionable electrical wiring. And several felons from the multiverse.” She nodded solemnly. “What could go wrong?”
Peter stared at her.
Denise stared back.
Somewhere behind them, Max said, “That supposed to make us feel better?”
“No,” Denise replied. “Mostly me.”
Peter laughed.
He could not help it.
It escaped quietly, tired and breathless, but real.
Denise smiled.
For one small moment, surrounded by stolen Stark technology, displaced supervillains, broken coffee mugs and enough illegal science to make several government agencies spontaneously develop migraines, Peter believed her.
They were going to fix this.
Then something inside him went still.
Peter’s smile disappeared.
The apartment became silent.
Not truly silent.
He could still hear the hum of the Stark fabricator. The mechanical shuffle of Doctor Octavius’s tentacles. The faint crackle of electricity building beneath Max Dillon’s skin. He could hear May fastening the equipment bag near the kitchen.
He could hear Denise beside him.
Breathing.
Moving.
Alive.
But something beneath all of it had vanished.
The invisible current that had lived beneath Peter’s skin since the spider bite suddenly withdrew.
Every nerve went cold.
A single thought formed in the hollow that remained.
Run.
“Peter?”
Denise had already noticed.
Of course she had.
She knew his expressions better than anyone. She had been studying them since before either of them could speak, back when communication between the Parker twins had consisted mostly of crying, grabbing and Denise biting his hand whenever he stole her blanket.
Her smile faded.
“What is it?”
Peter slowly turned towards Norman Osborn.
Norman had been standing near the window.
His shoulders were hunched. His hands trembled slightly at his sides. A moment earlier he had looked exhausted, frightened and painfully human.
Now he was watching Peter.
And smiling.
It was a small smile.
That made it worse.
Peter stopped breathing.
“Denise,” he said quietly.
She followed his stare.
“Take May and go.”
Denise did not move.
Norman lifted his head.
His posture straightened one vertebra at a time, as though somebody else were climbing into his body and trying it on.
“Peter,” Denise whispered.
“Now.”
Something shifted behind Norman’s eyes.
Then he laughed.
The sound did not belong in Happy Hogan’s apartment.
It was too sharp. Too delighted. Too full of teeth.
It cut through the warmth of the room, through the scattered tools and half-empty coffee mugs, through the absurd sight of several displaced supervillains waiting for a pair of teenagers to repair their lives.
Max looked towards Norman.
Norman looked back.
And Peter knew.
“Max,” Peter said.
Max’s hand moved towards the device on his chest.
“No.”
He ripped it free.
Electricity burst through the room.
The lights vanished.
May shouted.
Denise ducked as a bolt tore across the laboratory space and struck the fabricator. Sparks showered across the floor. Glass cracked. Somewhere behind them, one of the machines screamed as its power supply overloaded.
Peter crossed the apartment before the first fragments touched the ground.
Norman was already moving.
A fist struck Peter beneath the ribs.
The world tipped sideways.
Peter smashed through a glass partition and landed amongst the remains of a table and several chairs.
“Peter!”
Denise lunged towards him.
May caught her sleeve.
“No. We have to move.”
“We can’t leave him, it's a five on one.”
“And the best thing we can do for him is not become someone else he has to save.”
It was a cruel sentence because it was true.
Denise stopped.
Across the wrecked apartment, Peter forced himself upright.
Norman advanced towards him.
That terrible smile had not moved.
Peter met Denise’s eyes.
“Go.”
Denise looked as though she wanted to argue.
She always wanted to argue.
Peter loved that about her.
He loved it when she corrected his chemistry calculations without being asked. He loved it when she stole the last dumpling and insisted twins technically shared a digestive system. He loved it when she threatened to tell May about patrol injuries, only to repair the damaged pieces of his suit before he could leave again.
He loved her enough to shout.
“Denise, get May out!”
That finally broke through.
May pulled her towards the apartment door.
Denise snatched the bag containing the cures from beside the ruined fabricator before allowing herself to be dragged away.
Behind them, Norman tore free of Peter’s webbing.
The Green Goblin was loose.
The apartment exploded into movement.
Sand poured through a broken window.
Electricity ripped across the ceiling.
Doctor Octavius disappeared through a wall when one of Max’s blasts caught him across the mechanical arms.
Peter fired another web.
Norman caught it.
Pulled.
Peter barely released the strand before he was dragged across the room.
“Come on!” May shouted.
Denise stumbled into the corridor behind her.
Then something hit the wall behind them.
Hard.
The plaster burst outward.
Peter came through it.
He struck the far wall so hard the plaster split.
Denise tore her sleeve out of May’s hand and started running for Peter.
It was a choice she did not remember making.
One second she was standing beside May.
The next, she was running across broken glass and scattered tools because Peter was on the floor and Norman was above him.
“Denise!”
She barely heard May.
The lights flickered.
Denise stumbled.
A strange dizziness swept through her.
Not pain.
Something colder.
A current rushed through the back of her skull and vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.
For one bizarre instant, the world seemed too sharp.
The buzzing lights.
The electrical current behind the walls.
May’s footsteps.
Peter’s breathing.
Then it was gone.
Denise caught herself against the remains of a workbench.
Norman’s back was to her.
Peter’s face was turned sideways against the floor, jaw clenched, blood at the corner of his mouth.
Something hot and furious swallowed every sensible thought Denise possessed.
She grabbed a length of exposed cable hanging from the ruined machine.
Peter saw her.
His eyes widened.
“No.”
Denise swung.
The cable struck Norman across the shoulder.
He stopped.
Denise’s anger disappeared immediately.
Norman turned.
Slowly.
Denise realised, with horrible clarity, that she had succeeded only in gaining his attention.
His smile widened.
“Well,” he said, voice low and pleased.
His eyes travelled across her face.
“Another Parker.”
You would think that after finding herself in this many life-threatening situations simply because Spider-Man happened to be her twin brother, Denise might have learned a thing or two about self-preservation.
She had not.
She was rooted to the spot.
Cable still clenched in one hand, she stared at Norman as every sensible part of her brain screamed at her to move and apparently forgot to inform the rest of her body.
Peter’s eyes went wide.
“Denise, run!”
Norman reached for her.
Peter slammed into him from the side.
They crashed through the apartment door together and disappeared into the hallway, Peter driving Norman into the opposite wall hard enough to shake the light fixtures.
Denise remained frozen for half a heartbeat.
The cable remained clenched in her hand.
May seized her wrist.
“Come on.”
“But Peter—”
“Move!”
The building groaned.
That ended the argument.
Smoke crawled across the ceiling.
Somewhere below them, alarms began to shriek.
Denise’s head throbbed in time with them.
They had to get out.
They had to get Peter.
They had to get everyone out.
Her brain could not decide which instruction mattered most.
May dragged her towards the emergency stairwell.
Behind them came another crash.
Peter and Norman tore through the wall where they had just been standing in front of .
Denise twisted around.
“Peter!”
“I’m fine!” Peter shouted.
He was very obviously not fine.
Norman seized him and hurled him down the corridor.
Peter caught himself against the wall, fired two webs and pulled himself forward again before Norman could reach May and Denise.
“Go!”
May shoved open the stairwell door.
Denise entered reluctantly.
The next few minutes became fragments.
Noise without sequence.
Peter fighting.
May pulling Denise through the hall.
A flash of orange light beyond the windows.
Concrete cracking somewhere above them.
Doctor Octavius’s metal arms punching through a wall before disappearing again.
The building trembling beneath their feet.
Denise remembered shouting Peter’s name until her throat hurt.
She remembered May’s hand wrapped around hers, warm and alive.
She remembered seeing Peter through smoke and dust, still standing.
Still trying.
Always trying.
They reached the lower floor.
May shoved another door open.
The lobby beyond it had been torn apart.
Furniture lay overturned across the marble. Sprinklers spat uselessly through the smoke. The shattered entrance offered glimpses of the plaza outside and the flashing lights of approaching emergency vehicles.
“Go,” May said.
Denise turned back.
“Where’s Peter?”
“He’ll find us.”
“I’m not leaving without him.”
“Denise.”
“I’m not.”
A tremendous crash answered for her.
The ceiling above the corridor fractured.
Peter fell through it.
He hit the concrete and rolled.
Norman landed several metres away.
“Peter!”
Denise tried to run towards him again.
May caught her.
This time Denise nearly dragged her along.
Peter shoved himself onto one knee.
“Get her out!”
Norman attacked.
Peter barely blocked him.
The impact drove both of them through the remains of a reception desk.
Denise could hear herself breathing.
Too fast.
Everything was too loud.
Metal.
Alarms.
Glass.
Peter grunting when Norman struck him.
May shouting something she could no longer understand.
Then Peter hit concrete hard enough to crater it.
Pain flashed across his expression.
Before he could rise, Norman seized him and threw him into the corridor wall.
Peter slid down it.
Norman walked towards him through the dust.
There was no hesitation in his movements.
No fear.
No restraint.
He carried Norman Osborn’s strength without Norman Osborn’s conscience, and he seemed to enjoy every second of it.
Peter fired two webs.
Norman tore through them.
Peter launched himself forward, driving both feet into Norman’s chest.
They crashed through another wall.
Peter hit him once.
Twice.
Again.
Norman laughed through every blow.
Peter’s fists began to ache.
Norman’s smile widened.
“You could have everything,” he said. “And still you let people tell you what you’re allowed to keep.”
Peter swung again.
Norman caught his wrist.
Twisted.
Dragged Peter close and slammed his forehead into Peter’s mask.
“You save strangers,” Norman continued. “You sacrifice for people who hate you. And when the world asks for more, you offer it your throat.”
Peter tried to wrench himself free.
Norman threw him through the floor.
They fell together.
Concrete opened beneath them.
Pipes burst. Furniture splintered. Peter’s shoulder struck a support beam before he crashed into the lobby.
For several seconds, he could not move.
His mask flickered away from his face.
The air tasted of dust and burnt wiring.
“Peter!”
May and Denise reached him almost simultaneously.
Peter lifted his head.
“No. No, why are you still here?”
“Wonderful to see you too,” Denise breathed.
“Get out.”
Norman landed behind him.
Peter rolled away before Norman’s hands could close around him.
May reached into the bag.
The unfinished cure.
Peter saw what she intended.
“May, don’t—”
She moved anyway.
May charged from behind a collapsed section of wall and drove the injector into Norman’s neck.
Norman screamed.
For one hopeful heartbeat, everything stopped.
His expression emptied.
His shoulders slackened.
Peter stared.
Norman ripped the injector free.
The smile returned.
“It didn’t work.”
May backed away.
Peter felt his stomach drop.
Norman took one step towards her.
Peter attacked.
He hit Norman with enough force to send him through the remains of the lobby entrance.
“May!” Peter shouted. “Take Denise and run!”
“I am capable of running independently!” Denise shouted back.
“THEN DO IT!”
May grabbed her.
A mechanical whine rose somewhere beyond the building.
Peter heard it first.
His head snapped towards the sound.
The glider.
It tore through smoke and shattered glass.
“May!”
Peter moved.
The machine carved through the lobby.
May shoved Denise sideways.
The glider struck debris, clipped May and sent her crashing onto the floor.
“May!”
Denise dropped beside her.
“I’m okay,” May gasped.
“You are visibly not okay.”
“Denise—”
A metallic sphere rolled across the floor.
Green light blinked along its surface.
Denise knew enough about Norman’s technology to understand exactly what it was.
Her stomach dropped.
“Peter.”
Peter saw it.
Norman smiled.
Peter lunged.
Everything happened at once.
His web caught the bomb.
The glider turned.
May grabbed Denise.
Norman moved.
Peter shouted something Denise could not hear.
Then came the impact.
The world split open.
Concrete folded.
Metal screamed.
The floor vanished beneath Denise’s feet.
May’s hand slipped from hers.
For one impossible second, Denise was weightless.
She saw Peter.
Not Spider-Man.
Not the boy who had fought aliens in space.
Not Tony Stark’s protégé.
Not the teenager whose face had been broadcast across every television screen in New York.
Peter.
Her brother.
His mask was gone.
His eyes found hers through smoke and falling concrete.
He reached for her.
Denise reached back.
Their fingers never touched.
The ceiling came down between them.
And Denise Parker disappeared.
Peter woke to ringing.
He could not tell whether it came from his ears, the fire alarms or the distant sirens converging on the building.
For several seconds he did not know where he was.
Then memory returned all at once.
“May?”
Peter rolled onto his side.
Dust covered everything.
“May!”
His voice cracked.
A shape moved near the destroyed entrance.
Peter crawled towards it.
“May!”
She pushed herself upright as he reached her.
Peter wrapped both arms around her.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
May held him tightly.
For one second, Peter allowed himself to believe they had survived.
Then he remembered an outstretched hand disappearing behind concrete.
Peter pulled away.
“Denise.”
He looked towards the collapsed corridor.
“Where’s Denise?”
May’s eyes widened.
Peter was already moving.
“No.”
He staggered towards the wreckage.
A mountain of burning concrete occupied the place where his sister had been.
“No.”
He climbed onto it.
“Denise!”
Nothing answered.
Peter seized a slab and lifted it.
Nothing beneath it.
He threw it aside.
“Denise!”
Another piece.
Another.
His hands moved faster.
His spider-sense stretched desperately through the ruined building.
Officers shouting outside.
Radios.
Helicopters.
Fire.
The weak shifting of unstable concrete.
Heartbeats everywhere.
Firefighters.
Police.
People gathering behind barricades.
May.
His own.
Not Denise.
Peter stopped.
No.
He listened again.
Nothing.
“I can’t hear her.”
The words left him before he knew he had spoken.
Behind him, something struck the ground softly.
Peter turned.
May had sunk onto one knee.
“May?”
He abandoned the rubble immediately.
Peter rushed back and caught her beneath the arms.
“Hey. Hey, no. Come on.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“We have to find Denise.”
“I will.”
Peter lowered her carefully.
“I will. I promise. I just need to get you out first.”
May looked towards the collapsed building.
Peter followed her gaze.
Smoke rose from the place where Denise had vanished.
“This is my fault,” he said.
May looked at him.
“All of it.”
“Peter—”
“I should’ve sent them back. I should’ve listened to Strange. I should never have brought them here.”
“No.”
“May, Denise was here because of me.”
“She was here because she loves you.”
Peter looked towards the rubble.
“I can’t hear her.”
His voice broke.
May reached for him.
Her trembling fingers touched the side of his face.
“You don’t know what that means.”
“I know what heartbeats sound like.”
“Peter.”
“I can hear everyone elses. This is all my fault”
“Listen to me.”
Sirens surrounded them now.
Red lights flashed through the smoke.
“You tried to help people,” May said. “That wasn’t wrong.”
“They’re gone because I tried to help.”
“You don't know that.”
“I brought him here.”
“And you believed he could be saved.”
“I was wrong.”
“No.” May shook her head. “You have a gift. You have power. And with great power, there must also come great responsibility.”
Peter stared at her.
For a moment, the burning building disappeared.
The sirens disappeared.
The entire ruined world narrowed to May Parker sitting in front of him.
She attempted a smile.
It was the expression she had used whenever she caught him pretending not to be afraid. When Uncle Ben died. When they lost the apartment in Queens. When the world discovered Spider-Man’s identity and every camera in New York turned towards their windows.
She had always looked at him as though fear were simply another thing the three of them could survive together.
Peter swallowed.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “I know.”
May exhaled shakily.
“Good.”
Her hand slipped.
Peter caught it.
“We’re getting you to a hospital,” he said quickly. “Then I’m coming back for Denise.”
May’s eyes fluttered.
“She’s probably trapped somewhere,” Peter continued. “That’s all. She’s trapped.”
May nodded faintly.
“Probably.”
“And when I find her, she’s going to be really mad that it took me this long.”
“Definitely.”
“She’ll say I wasted time.”
“She’ll never let you forget it.”
A tiny laugh escaped Peter.
It sounded too close to a sob.
“Exactly.”
He looked towards the rubble again.
“She’ll probably calculate exactly how long it took and bring it up every birthday.”
May smiled faintly.
“That sounds like her.”
Peter looked back at May.
Her smile had disappeared.
“May?”
She sagged against him.
Peter caught her.
Something warm spread beneath his hand.
He looked down.
The colour drained from his face.
“No.”
May followed his gaze almost as though she did not understand what she was seeing.
“No, no, no. It’s okay.” Peter pressed his hand against the wound. “You’re okay.”
“Peter?”
“I’m right here.”
His hands shook.
“Somebody help us!”
Armoured officers entered through the shattered plaza.
Peter barely registered them.
“We need an ambulance!” he shouted. “Please!”
Weapons rose.
Peter bent over May instinctively.
“Stay with me,” he whispered. “Please.”
May’s breathing grew shallower.
“Denise needs you.”
Peter pressed harder.
“I need you.”
May looked at him.
For one final moment, her eyes cleared.
“You have each other.”
Peter froze.
“May?”
Her chest became still.
Peter waited.
One second.
Two.
The next breath did not come.
“May?”
He touched her face.
“May, look at me.”
Nothing.
“Please.”
The world continued without her.
Fire crackled in the wreckage.
Police radios hissed.
A helicopter circled overhead, recording every second.
Concrete shifted somewhere inside the collapsed building.
Peter remained on his knees with May in his arms.
For the first time in his life, Aunt May Parker was completely still.
A car skidded to a stop beyond the barricade.
Happy climbed out.
His gaze found May.
Then Peter.
Then the collapsed building behind them.
His face changed.
“Where’s Denise?”
Peter opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
Happy looked towards the rubble.
He understood.
“No.”
The officers caught him before he could cross the barricade.
“Peter!”
Peter lowered his forehead against May’s.
“I’m sorry.”
“Peter, get out of there!”
The officers advanced.
“Spider-Man, place your hands where we can see them!”
Peter did not move.
“I’m so sorry.”
Gunfire struck the concrete beside him.
Peter flinched over May’s body.
“Go!” Happy shouted. “They can’t lose you too!”
Peter looked towards him.
Then towards May.
Then towards the mountain of rubble.
Denise was somewhere beneath it.
She had been reaching for him.
Every instinct demanded that he stay.
Dig.
Find her.
Pull the entire building apart with his bare hands if that was what it took.
Another section of ceiling collapsed.
The ground shook.
Bullets shattered concrete near his feet.
Peter looked down at May one final time.
“I’ll find her.”
He did not know whether he was promising May, Denise or himself.
Maybe all three.
Peter lowered May carefully onto the broken pavement.
His hands lingered.
Then he stood.
The damaged nanotechnology crawled reluctantly across his face.
His mask formed.
For one moment, Spider-Man stood between the two people he could not save.
May behind him.
Denise beneath the ruins ahead.
Then the officers closed in.
Peter ran.