Variant Strain

May Parker had stared out the small window in the back of the van practically the entire time they had been driving.

They were driving in a convoy. The Thunderbolts soldiers had APCs bracketing an oversized black van sporting the Gentek corporate logo on the side.

The back of the van had a row of seating against each side. No seat belts. There were also some sort of compartments between the front seats and the back for weapons storage. MJ knew, without knowing how she had known, that the van was meant to deploy Gentek security teams to clean up problems. Heavily armed security teams for heavily armed problems.

Sort of like what Peter's other selves were pretending to be.

Gwen Stacy and Anna Watson were passed out. It might have been from the painkillers, or simply exhaustion, both physical and emotional... The past week had been terrible for everyone.

MJ held May as the older woman continued to stare back down the road. MJ knew May was looking past the APC that followed them. Past the horizon. Back to the Osborn Mansion.

Back to where they lost Peter.

May had screamed herself raw when the floor had collapsed, taking Peter with it. She'd seen what Peter had done. How his body had moved and how he'd shifted... there hadn't been time for questions or recriminations or explanations in the mad scramble to escape.

Even now that things had quieted down as they strove to put more distance between themselves and the Osborn place... May had shut down. Not even wondering anymore about what had happened, only that she was certain Peter was lost to them.

That nothing they could do would change that.

It was just too much. One thing after another.

MJ, in contrast, was calm. Painfully still and calm. Part of her wanted to scream defiance. She badly wanted to pull out one of the guns that now felt so comfortable in her grip and hold it against the driver's head and demand that they turn around.

She kept that impulse firmly pushed down. It would be unproductive. It would just end up with the others taking her gun away. Possibly having to knock her out as well. Given what her new metabolism was like, that would probably involve a LOT of drugs. Or a concussion.

MJ gently allowed May to settle back onto the bench seat before she turned her full attention to the conscious inhabitants of the van.

Peter's friends.

His other selves.

"Can he get away?" MJ asked quietly, her voice flat.

If she understood correctly... These people were funhouse mirror versions of Peter himself.

Donna was closest to the front end of the van, she turned her full attention on MJ. Peter reflected as a soldier. And a woman.

Cain was driving. A massive, hulking presence in the driver's seat. Peter reflected as a stoic, solid, unflappable beast of a man with only half a face.

Next to him was Cletus, mercifully quiet, but eyeing MJ over his shoulder. Peter reflected as a sarcastic serial killer.

The last of them was Connors, who hadn't joined them on the assault on the mansion. He was small and thin, hunched over a laptop. He had the same red hair the other three had, but his complexion was particularly pale and bloodless. His fingers tapped incessantly at the keys even as he seemed to ignore what was happening around them. Peter reflected as a scientist.

Cletus seemed to be on the verge of opening his mouth when Donna leaned over and gave him a hard, firm rap on the forehead with her knuckles.

"What the hell, woman?!" Cletus complained.

Donna ignored him and fixed MJ with a look.

No... she wasn't quite looking at MJ. Her gaze was on Aunt May. Still and silent and barely responsive.

MJ glanced down to May, then back up to Donna. MJ's lips were a firm, hard line. She had to know. She could sense... something. She knew there was a certain finality to what was happening. She didn't like the feeling.

Peter had always been reliable. Always capable. Her rock.

She also knew, quietly... in the back of her mind, that she really should not have gotten so attached to him so quickly. So... intensely. It felt right, but there was something... just an uncomfortable feeling that she was only peripherally aware of.
Just on the edge of perception that told her it had been too fast. Too much.

But that was that. This was this.

She wanted-- no. She NEEDED some reassurance.

There wasn't any in Donna's expression.

MJ licked suddenly dry lips and fought to keep her expression calm.

She repeated her question, staring hard at Donna. “Can he get away?”

Donna spoke slowly, choosing each word with care. "He could. If that's what he was really trying to do."

MJ understood that. Ever since she'd woken up from Peter healing her, she found it so much easier to understand him and why he would do the things he did. "But he's not going to, is he?"

Connors' voice was dry and reedy, but despite that, carried through the van. "We... he... thought we had a way to do what had to be done and survive."

Cletus piped up, his voice faintly morose, "Except no plan ever survives encountering the enemy and all that jazz."

"What exactly was the plan?" MJ asked after sharply.

Cletus chuckled darkly. "It boiled down to gettin' you guys out, then droppin' a couple dozen tons of Eff-you on top of the infection in this area to scour it clean."

"I get that," MJ turned her glance towards Donna, "I mean, what exactly was supposed to happen? And how are all of you... you?"

Donna replied, "Peter..." She paused, seemingly looking for the right words, "He went too far when he fought Jessica in New York. He dove too deep into the molecular programming built into the Hydra virus. It has directives. Goals. It was designed as a... what was it?" She glanced towards the others.

"A terraforming package." Connors supplied. "A hunk of Hydra biomass is meant to land on an uninhabited or otherwise uninhabitable world, adapt to whatever it found and create an ecosystem based on the Chitauri provided data of what's habitable. It included personality engrams. Molecular scale memory storage. Sort of pre-programmed function/personality overlays meant to handle jobs during the terraforming process."

"And all the meat… stuff?" MJ asked, fascinated despite herself.

Connors nodded, looking away from the laptop he'd been staring at. "Meant to be the self-propagating base of a new food chain that would develop different creatures for different ecological niches, ultimately culminating in the creation of self-aware Chitauri people who would live on the transformed world. It's really an elegant way of trying to conquer the univer--"

Donna cut him off. "The problem was that once Peter got down to the programming level where he could directly manipulate the Hydra... it could manipulate him back, forcing him to follow its built in programming directives. He could literally do anything with it, but the only thing it wanted him to do was turn Earth into a copy of the Chitauri homeworld. Complete with Chitauri."

MJ nodded. "Then how did we get from that," She gestured vaguely around the van. "To here?"

Donna gave May another glance, noting that the woman still seemed to be ignoring everything around her. Possibly, she had even passed out.

Donna shook her head then continued, "Peter did what he could to make sure New York was safe, so he gathered up or killed off every scrap of infected biomass in New York... which included pretty much the entire forest of razors he'd left behind in Queens and all of Hank Pym's old biomass and flung it into orbit."

MJ simply stared. "... how?"

Donna shrugged, then glanced over to Connors.

"Gravity manipulation." Connors replied. "You know Peter could adjust the effects of gravity on his body to a limited extent, correct?"

"Well, yeah." MJ agreed.

"Past a certain amount of mass, the Pym Fluid doesn't just influence gravity, Peter was able to recirculate it in specific ways, through a toroidal chamber with a specific spin as a sort of biological based gravity engine meant to be used as an interstellar drive." Connors continued.

"Basically Pete got all of himself gathered up in a spot, collapsed the rest of the Gentek building on top of himself and used all the ruckus to cover up the fact that he just flung a hundred ton meat body into space under everyone's noses." Cletus grinned and pointed straight up.

MJ held a hand up. "Wait. If Peter's in space, who was that with us, then?!"

Donna made an off-hand gesture. "That was also Peter. Technically."

"If'n you wanna get really REALLY technical," Cletus drawled, "We're all Peter."

MJ took a deep breath before responding. "I know that, but... so... wait..."

Cletus replied, gesturing animatedly while twisting around in the front seat to face them fully. "Long story. Big space Peter had a fully aware Chitauri memory engram, the Dorrek, trying to prod him into transforming Earth into a Chitauri ecosystem. He had to make sure he didn't do that while also making sure he could get to you guys and find whatever it was Gentek was using as their alternate source for Hydra."

"Hence, us." Cain graveled from the driver's seat, startling MJ.

Donna nodded and she continued. "Peter built these bodies and budded off copies of our personality engrams into them. We were meant to be isolated from big space Peter. His way of giving us a chance to be our own people separate from him."

"The Peter back in the mansion--?" MJ began to ask, but got cut off by Cletus.

"Same deal. Although he was the first one big Peter built, so little Peter's brain got a teeny bit scrambled. It's why his memories got a little jacked."

Connors nodded. "These bodies, like Peter's back in the mansion, were meant to operate independently. No Hydra bodies or mass organs at all." His lips compressed into a thin line. "They're biologically optimized, even superhuman. We still have some degree of pheromonal communication, which is what was happening during the fight before we left--"

He paused as he realized everyone else was staring at him. He cleared his throat and ducked his attention back down to the laptop, "But long story short, we don't have the specific protein binding points that would allow a Hydra viral body to directly manipulate our biology. We're immune to baseline Hydra infections."

Cletus barked a laugh. “I mean that stuff could still rip us apart and eat our biomass and rebuild us from the ground up. Maybe even adapt to the immunity in the process, but besides that we’re immune.”

MJ frowned. "But if that's the case then how--?"

"Little Peter managed to link back to Big Space Peter," Cletus replied, "So he probably figured the best bet for everyone else to survive--"

"-- would involve him allowing himself to get reinfected." Donna concluded.

"My best guess is that he still had enough control over his biology to undo his immunity." Connors supplied.

"That idiot." MJ slumped, dragging her hand down her face. Her expression was morose. She glanced over to May, who still hadn't responded to any of this. She chewed on her lower lip for a second, then grumbled more to herself than to anyone else. "The sweet, heroic, self-sacrificing idiot."

"That's about the size of it, darlin'," Cletus drawled morosely.

MJ looked up and swept her gaze around the vehicle, taking in everyone.

"Can't we ask..." She paused and stumbled over the words, "'Big Space Peter' to redownload a Peter mind into a new body?"

"Theoretically," Connors said, considering the question. "But none of us have a link back to him anymore. We weren't built that way... and even if we could reach him to ask, he's in a geosynchronous orbit above our heads right now waiting for the signal to drop himself on the Osborn place. He wouldn't be able to send us an active Hydra biomass package to create a fresh new copy of Peter before he finishes what he has to do."

“How do you even know that?” MJ asked sharply.

Connors held up the laptop, showing a screen full of numbers and weird arcing lines across a black screen. “I’ve got satellites tracking where Big Peter is. Even allowing for his ability to manipulate gravity, he only has extremely limited windows for action. At least if he wants to accomplish what he’s trying to do without endangering everyone again.”

Cain rumbled bleakly from the driver’s seat, “Which basically leaves us with nothing.”

MJ latched onto a thought and frowned. “You guys were built immune to Hydra reinfection.” She said slowly. “No Hydra left in your biology, not even the inactive stuff, right?”

Connors frowned back, catching on to her tone. “That’s true.”

MJ smiled, bright and brittle and sharp as a broken mirror.

Donna gave voice to the thought, her voice low as she looked directly at MJ. “You weren’t.”

MJ shook her head, still smiling. “No. If he was fumbling around with the first ‘Peter’ body he made, he had even less experience when he did me. He had no idea what he was doing!”

Cletus snorted. “Sounds like you’re tryin’ to hang a hope entirely on Petey’s ignorance.”

MJ’s voice was firm. “That's all I’ve got.”

“If you still had active Hydra viral bodies in you, Peter would have been able to isolate and remove them when he was under the Gentek building,” Connors pointed out, not unreasonably.

“Except she could still have the whatchacall’em? Non-active stuff.”

“Spores.” Connors replied.

“That bunny.”

Donna sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Even if you do have Hydra spores in your body. How does that help us? Even if you could activate them and force a connection back to Big Space Peter before he’s done, he may not be able to send another body down and you’d have an active Hydra infection and we’d be right back where we started--”

MJ shook her head. “I think I may already have some active Hydra we can use to force activation of the stuff inside me.” She held her hand up, still smeared with dried blood.
“You were holdin’ hands with Petey right after he was splattered from killing a whole bunch of infected.” Cletus chuckled.

Connor’s eyes opened wide. “That’s completely unhygienic--”

“Oh, please. She’s proposin’ to do a thing that’s probably going to be some kind of an abomination against God and nature and y’all are getting prissy about her hands bein’ dirty.”

Donna glowered, then heaved a sigh. “I suppose we’re always ready to get our hands dirty.”

MJ grinned. “Mine already are.”

“So you might be able to reinfect yourself,” Cain cut in unexpectedly, “How does that get you in touch with Big Peter?”

That drew MJ up short for only a fraction of a second before she shook her head. “I know Peter’s with me. We’re connected--”

Cletus snorted dismissively, but Connors pointed out, “She’s not actually wrong. When we were reabsorbing biomass under Gentek, she wasn’t one of our bodies, but any activated Hydra in her would be Peter’s specific strain and would be able to flip back on the mass-space connection.”

MJ coughed awkwardly. “Yes, that’s what I meant.”

Donna raised a single eyebrow at the younger girl’s words. “That still doesn’t mean you know how to initiate the actual communication.”

Connors reached up and massaged the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes as he gave a long, sad sigh. “She doesn’t. I do.”

“That’s not what you were meant fo–” Donna began to say, but got cut off by MJ.

“What does that mean?” She asked, sharply.

“Peter initially meant for me to handle communications across multiple bodies if we were able to get the multi-body handling up and running. We couldn’t get it to work… but I still have the right brain structures meant to handle it.” He opened his eyes and looked directly into MJ’s unwavering gaze. “I can be used to interface back to big Peter.”

MJ nodded thoughtfully. “So I reinfect myself and use you as a relay to talk to Peter and ask him to send us… um…”

“Himself.” Cain rumbled succinctly.

“Exactly.” MJ grinned at the back of the man’s head, before turning to look at the sleeping occupants of the vehicle and the rest of Peter’s selves.

Donna shook her head. “This is ill-advised,” She murmured.

MJ gave her a hard look. “We’re doing this.”

Cletus shrugged, “Guess we are.”

“How, exactly?” Cain asked.

Before anyone could stop her, MJ licked the palm of her hand.

It was gritty and metallic. Salt sweat and blood lingered on her tongue for a second before she gathered spit in her mouth and swallowed.

She winced and stuck her tongue out with a faintly disgusted expression. “That was...”

Donna sighed and covered her face with her hand.

Cletus laughed.

Cain glanced over his shoulder at the byplay and shrugged. “That works, I guess.”

MJ stared at her hand. “I don’t know if that’s working, though.”

Her filthy, blood smeared hand seemed to become a brighter red the longer she stared at it.

“Looks like it is.” Donna said drily.

“How do you know?” MJ asked timidly.

“Your eyes are glowing.” Connors replied.

MJ blinked in surprise, the eerie red glow flaring out briefly before returning.

“That’s a start. We don’t want that to go too far, though.” He gestured vaguely to Cletus. “Knife please.”

“Uh… sure?” Cletus pulled a combat knife from his boot and passed it over, handle first.

Connors nodded acknowledgement and passed the laptop to Donna. “I will be distracted, so I’ll need you to keep an eye on this in the meantime.”

MJ glanced towards Connors. “So my infection’s activated. How do I… um… interface… with you?”

“I assume you wouldn’t want to do it the way you would with Peter and I don’t have the relevant Pym organelles to exhale the airborne pheromones, we’ll have to do it in a cruder manner.” Connors replied softly.

“Crude–?”

“Hand, please.” Connors asked gently.

MJ, bemused held her hand out.

Without missing a beat, he delicately sliced her palm open with the knife Cletus has given him.

“Hey!” MJ snapped, as the line of bright pain made itself known and fresh blood welled up onto her already dirty palm.

“It’s the only way.” Connors replied blandly, a faint smile on his face as he cut his own hand open and before MJ could object further, pressed his open wound to hers. “Now we actually need you to reach out to him.”

MJ could feel his blood and hers oozing uncomfortably between their hands, making them slick and awkward as he held on. “How?”

Connors shrugged. “ I actually don’t know.”

MJ rolled her eyes, then closed them, trying to concentrate on the image of Peter in her mind. Trying to think at him, but she could tell it wasn’t doing anything. She tried out loud, “Peter?

“Mindset.” Cain declared quietly. “Gotta get into his mindset.”

MJ gave an exasperated glare at the larger man, “What do you think Peter is thinking as a giant space meatball?”

Donna murmured softly, "Stronger than tears."

Connors' eyes opened wider as he slowly began a staccato whisper at MJ. "Earth below us. Drifting. Falling. Floating. Weightless. Calling."

"Calling home." She blurted out in reply. The words half-sung as a half-remembered tune played.

Cletus grinned and called out, continuing the tune, even as he counted down on his fingers. "Four, three, two, one."

Connors voice had gained strength and a soft confidence as he repeated his words, but now to the rhythm. "Earth below us. Drifting. Falling. Floating. Weightless. Calling."

MJ could swear that she was hearing a guitar strumming as Connors sang.

"Calling home." MJ sang back, compelled now.

She closed her eyes.

Everything faded away.

- - -

MJ’s eyes opened and she found herself on a seemingly infinite, flat white plane. Above her, was a flat, dead black that shimmered with bright, cold pinpricks of light.

A sky full of harsh, judgemental stars.

Despite the white plane she stood on, the light was odd.

Dim. Flat. Sourceless.

Everything seemed to be evenly lit by a non-existent light source.

Some of her hair that dangled before her eyes seemed desaturated. It wasn’t its usual vibrant red, but closer to Peter’s shade of flat, mousy brown.
She looked around, not seeing anything or anyone on the vast white plane.

A glance up showed the stars hadn’t changed, but the more she looked the more she could pick out a shadow, blotting out a section of the sky above her. An immense not-quite-circle of black cut into the darkness that seemed to be simultaneously darker and yet less oppressive than the vastness around her.

She wasn’t sure if she was imagining the gradations in the black above her, but she could swear she could see subtle differences in the darkness. Something in the shadows that she simply couldn’t quite make out that was immense enough to blot out the stars above her.

MJ admitted to herself that she had half-expected some kind of surreal mindscape when she came looking to speak to Peter… or ‘Big Space Peter’... but this wasn’t quite it.

Worse, was that despite definitely no longer being in the van and having no sense of what her actual body was doing, she didn’t seem to be any closer to actually speaking to Peter. She looked around the flat white plane and to the very edges of her vision, she seemed entirely alone.

“Hello?” She called out. Her voice rang hollow in the open space. There was nothing for it to echo off of, but somehow she could faintly make out her own voice coming back to her.

“Is anyone there?” She called out again. The sound of her own voice was still startling. She wasn’t sure she could even hear her own heartbeat in the dead silence of this place.

“Can you hear me?”

The faint echo this time didn’t speak her own words back to her, but thrummed a three part beat.

She frowned looking around herself.

She spoke the words again, this time to a cadence. “Can you hear me?”

The three part beat thrummed in the air once more. Expectant.

Waiting.

She thought about how she’d gotten here in the first place.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she knew, but she remembered that Peter had thought of his communications through the viral medium in musical terms.
In his case they were literal musicals. Her views of things seemed… less Broadway and more… something else.
It had worked in the van to get here… then perhaps?

She cleared her throat and this time sang out. “Ground Control to Major Tom.”

The thrumming echoed it back this time, the full phrase. Ground Control to Major Tom.

She smiled, trying desperately to remember how the rest of the song went, but the air hummed. It felt like a string being plucked. Several at once. A chord played out, vibrating deep within her bones.

Dum-dum-TISH

Dum-dum-TISH

It was loud. Almost too loud, but she could feel the words more than hear them, embedded in the rhythm.

This is Major Tom to Ground Control, I’m stepping through the door.

MJ inhaled sharply as a door suddenly opened in front of her. There wasn’t an actual door per se, simply a black rectangle in the air, that slowly swung open. Like the dark itself was something solid, that for just a moment, was allowing something to pass through.

Light spilled out around the edges for a moment before a deeper shadowed form stepped through, closing the door behind it.

It wasn’t an exceptionally tall figure.

It was stooped and familiar.

MJ almost rushed forward, but once she got a better look, she hesitated.

While the form seemed familiar enough, it was dressed oddly, in a silver jumpsuit and silvery boots. The face was obscured by a rectangular blue visor that covered everything from the upper lip to the top of the brow and it was attached almost indifferently to a silver helmet. On the figure’s chest, was a hard, plastic breastplate in gray.

The breastplate had a white horizontal stripe across the middle with large, red letters that spelled out, “MAJOR TOM”.

MJ stared. He awkwardly waved and the line of his jaw, the bottom curve of his smile.

She couldn’t mistake that for anyone else. MJ was halfway between laughing and sobbing as she tackled him into a hug.

She had her arms loosely wrapped around his neck even as she grinned at him.

When he finally spoke, his voice was exactly what MJ had hoped for.

“Um… how did you get here?” Peter asked.

Her eyes still stung a bit and her cheeks were beginning to hurt even as she answered.

“The usual way we get to spend time together. There was some bloodshed involved.”

Peter boggled at her and she smiled even wider.

She had missed him making that face. That poleaxed, but desperately trying to stay in control face he always made.

Had it really only been just a day or so? It had felt so much longer.

Peter looked like he was about to ask her a question, but before he could do so, she lifted up the blue-tinted visor on his face, clearing the way for her to kiss him, hard.

He tasted of blood and salt. Lip balm and waffles.

He was delicious.

She pulled back, taking in his face for a moment, the long hungry kiss had knocked his makeshift helmet entirely off his head, revealing his face, pale and bloodless.

Reminding her why she had needed to do this in the first place.

She slapped him sharply.

“What the heck?!” He asked, staring at her.

“That’s for leaving us!”

“I was trying to save your lives!”

“At the cost of your own!”

His mouth opened and closed a few times before he pointed out, “I’m right here.”

“This is some kind of brain thing, right?” She cast him a dubious glance. “Where’s real you?”

“Um… there’s the me under the Osborne place right now. And part of me is in orbit–”

MJ shook her head impatiently. “I know, but which one am I talking to right now?”

He gave her a level look. “Neither. Maybe both, if you want to get really technical. I’m an engram of Peter that the intelligence behind the Hydra biomass in space is using to communicate with you. I’m about as much the Peter you know, as you are the MJ I know.”

She frowned. “What does that mean?”

“That means you aren’t really here either. You’re an engram of MJ Watson, that already exists within the Hydra biomass. A snapshot that was taken when you were first infected. This you synchronized with the MJ body on Earth and this conversation is a… a convenient mental shorthand that we’re experiencing to allow you to speak to me. Something you shouldn’t be able to do, since you didn’t have an active Hydra infection.”

“I kind of do, again.” She replied almost meekly. “Connors is acting as an interface, but yeah.”

“Yes, since we’re talking.” Peter sighed. “I can send a signal back to shut your infection down again and it will drop this link–”

“Wait, wait! Yes, I do want you to do that, but we also want you back!” MJ said hurriedly, holding both hands up to stop him.

He shook his head. “That’s… MJ, I don’t think that’s going to be possible. The Peter on Earth right now is already–”

She cut him off. “Going to sacrifice himself to save everyone else by calling you down to smash into the Osborn place. I know. Is there a way to do it so he doesn’t have to die?”

“I’m coming in as a multi-ton kinetic weapon.” He replied softly.

“So you put on a little weight,” She said, trying to make light of it.

He smiled indulgently, but continued, “I’m probably going to have to scour the immediate area to make sure there’s no active Hydra left on the planet before I completely send myself away. I don’t think there’s a way to leave enough biomass to form a new body for me to load an engram into without ruining the plan and leaving a pocket of live Hydra behind. I can’t risk staying on Earth long enough to do it and if I try to program some to do the work– I’m sorry, MJ. It wouldn’t work.”

She chewed on her lower lip to keep it from quivering. Her eyes prickled at that thought. “I could stay with you here, then.” She barely managed to choke out.

His eyes softened and he ran his fingers through her hair. “MJ, you are literally already part of me. This copy of your engram once it desyncs from MJ on Earth is already staying here.”

She swallowed, she could feel her throat closing up. Even if this was some kind of emulation, she felt so… real. “So Earth MJ has to live without you, but we can be together?”

He winced. “Yes.”

That got a nod as she took a deep, simulated breath. “Okay. Then, turn the lights out.”

“I beg your pardon?” He stared.

“I can be with you. I’m getting my happy ending. My self? Other? Earth MJ won’t. Break her biomass down. She’s not… I… she… I know I wouldn’t be able to handle having to go on without you. It’ll be kinder to kill her. Me. I’m her also, so she’d be surplus to requirements, right? It’s–”

Peter was staring at her with an expression of complete disbelief when she was cut off by another voice coming from behind her.

“I might be able to propose an alternative.”

MJ startled badly and Peter turned, putting himself between MJ and the source of the voice. An act that was literally meaningless within the simulation they were in, MJ knew on an intuitive level, but it warmed her heart nevertheless.

Standing behind Peter was Conners, but not quite. He was still thin and pale, but he looked very different. His hair was a shock of untamed spikes sticking out in every direction across the top of his head but coming down to a mullet at his shoulders. He wore a pale blue suit with a red and white striped tie. Around his eyes was a dark blue eyeshadow and his lips seemed almost blood red.

“Conners?” Peter asked uncertainly.

“Miss Watson had to use me as the interface to reach you,” Conners said with a small red smile. “Peter, let's be honest. You have more reason to live than I do.”

“That’s–” Peter tried to reply, but Conners shook his head as MJ’s arms wrapped around him more tightly.

“Oh, please, don’t even try to argue the point.” Conners chuckled. “Certainly not while Miss Watson is right there. Your aunt’s with us. So are Miss Stacy and Miss Watson’s aunt. You can’t tell me they’d be fine with losing you. There’s been enough death”

“You make a good point, but you deserve to live as well.” Peter argued back.

MJ’s lips tightened into a thin line. She didn’t actually reply, but Conners caught her expression and gave her another smile. “Not really? The original ‘me’ was frankly as good as dead even before you consumed me. What there is of me is an amalgamation of dead men’s personalities shrink-wrapped around knowledge. There’s no life for me to come back to. No one who would care if I lived or died. You, in contrast, do have something to live for.”

“I’d care.” Peter said simply.

“And you would still be here with me. I’d remain.” Conners shrugged. “Admittedly, maybe Donna or Cain or Cletus could be better or more willing to offer their corporeal form to you to give you a… what is it now? Fourth chance at life? Fifth? Who even keeps count anymore? The point is, none of them are currently linked and ready to receive the relevant orders from you. Just me.”

MJ gave Peter a hard stare. She wanted to push him to this. She needed him to choose… one way or another. Either he turned Conners body into himself or he finished her body off. She could press him. She was sure he’d know the right thing to do.

Her eyes met with Conners and he gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

“Peter, you gave me this body practically on a whim. And it wasn’t even one that worked out, since I couldn’t do the job you originally intended for me to do. I don’t have a life back there. You do. It’s not even like you’d be killing me.” He spoke slowly, enunciating each word to hammer the point home, “I’ll still be here. With you. All of us on a cosmic journey to seed the universe and maybe when the time comes your engram will wake mine up and I’ll get to see things unimaginable.”

Peter glanced towards MJ and she took his hand and squeezed it firmly. She spoke with simple conviction. “Either you come back with me, or you make sure I’m not left without you. I know you. I know you wouldn’t want to leave Aunt May alone either. Ultimately it's your choice, but I know you’ll make the right one.” She kissed his knuckles. “I trust you.”

“Time’s running out,” Conners murmured, glancing up. The stars were dragging themselves across the false sky, spinning crazily around a central point and the immense black circle cut into the sky was shifting. “We’ve received the other Peter’s signal and are now about to execute re-entry.”

Peter looked from MJ to Conners then nodded. “Are you sure?”

Conners nodded back, half-way singing his words in a strong tenor, “I've heard a rumor from Ground Control.”

MJ felt the right words rise to her lips, the line was unfamiliar, but she knew they were the right ones. “Oh no, don't say it's true.” She squeezed Peter’s hand harder, grounding herself with the feel of him. The rhythm of the communication as it coursed through them. “They got a message from the Action Man.”

Conners hummed lazily and nodded back. "I'm happy, hope you're happy too.” He paused for a second, looking Peter directly in the eyes as he completed the line. “I’ve loved all I’ve needed to love."

Peter closed his eyes and smiled as he sang the last words. “Sordid details to follow.”

Everything faded to whiteness as words thrummed against her head to the beat.

Ashes to ashes.

- - -

MJ gasped sharply as her eyes flew open. She could feel liquid running out of her nose. There was a fluttering sensation against her body, specifically against her hand as whatever she was holding on to squirmed and writhed against her skin.

They were back in the transport. Conners was no longer Conners as his body had exploded into the black and red threads of undifferentiated viral biomatter. Tendrils flicked against her face, the blood that had been coming out of her nose wiped clean and absorbed by the biomass. The wound in her hand was knitting closed and she could even feel the gritty dried blood being taken away.

All around them were screams of alarm and terror. That was Cletus. Oh, and May was screaming. At least she’d snapped out of her catatonic grief.

Oh, right. They didn’t know what was happening.

The mass finally collapsed into itself and Conners was truly gone, leaving only Peter in Connor’s clothes.

She didn’t hesitate to embrace him and kissed him hard, tasting the faint salt and sweet and blood as her arms wrapped around him squeezing him hard.

May’s scream turned to a bewildered exclamation of, “Peter?!” Before she too ran the length of the transport, practically stumbling over everyone else to embrace him as well.

Gwen and Aunt Anna were beginning to stir, awakened by the noise.

Donna simply said in a flat tone. “What.”

Cletus was laughing.

Everything was already chaos even as behind them, in the distance, a massive fireball roared into existence, like an immense second sun, visible through the tiny windows in the back of the van.

A hammerblow of wind rocked the van and a wash of heat actually cut through to the inside of the vehicle.

The light burned in the distance, dimming only slowly, but MJ had Peter in her arms.

Nothing else mattered.