Dark Matter

Peter is being chased.

He swings through Gotham in a blind panic, moving faster than he has in his life. He practically flies, propelled by adrenaline and fear and something else, something that forces helpless giggles of terror out of himself with every turn. He hears murmuring around him, voices that he vaguely recognizes but can’t quite place in his panic. He flees from those, too.

He doesn’t know what’s chasing him. But he can hear its laughter, see the shadow of its giant metallic wings fly overhead, and hear the skittering of legs crawl across the walls of the buildings looming above. Buildings that tilt precariously, swaying back and forth in the frigid wind, threatening to fall and crush him beneath their weight. There’s a strange unreality to his surroundings, as if he’s seeing things through a veil, and some part of him recognizes the hallucinations for what they are. But his senses are rattling him apart from the inside, a constant stream of dangerdangerdanger.

Something is chasing him.

He can feel the destruction behind him, racing to meet him, swirling around him. The thing Thanos did that dissolved half of his universe and killed his family and friends. The dusting. The ashes. They’re everywhere. Stinging his face, falling from the sky, some large and fat, others small and stinging. Ashes that used to be people--

“Peter!”

A voice. He recognizes it. Someone important.

“Peter, you need to get somewhere safe,” Shuri says, keeping her tone even and gentle. It cuts through the panic, but not by much.

Safe. What’s safe? There’s nothing safe here! Thanos won, the Vulture is circling above, the buildings are starting to crumble--

The building nearest to him shifts, twisting like a vine, the bricks cracking and crumbling; it’s going to fall. Right on top of him. He can’t get trapped like that again. The crushing pressure, trapped alone--The memory forms unbidden. It’s as if he’s there again, buried alive and left for dead. He bites back a giggling scream.

He has to get away from the buildings. Peter yanks himself over to the side, swinging hard for the riverfront. Something warm runs down his side, and a fresh wave of anxiety follows that thought, but he can’t recall why. It isn’t important; what’s important is getting away from the buildings. He swings along the outside edge of them, keeping to the riverfront. The snow (ashes) becomes thicker, the wind becomes stronger. He’s swinging right into the teeth of the storm now.

A gale force wind hits him as he’s swinging from one building to the next, throwing his swing off balance. It pushes him out and over the river. His panic freezes him in place, and he tries too late to shoot a new web. The wind pushes him over the river, stretching the web line he’s connected to much too far; if it was his formula, there wouldn’t be enough give to pull him this far. It isn’t his formula; it’s Batman’s. Good, but not built to snap back the way his webs would allow.

The line snaps.

He falls into the water, the icy cold a shock to his system that cuts through the panic completely. Most of his suit, torn and bloody, is ripped away from him by the currents. The utility belt is ripped away in the torrent. His mind is just clear enough to realize how close he is to dying.

He thinks, Someone help me!

There’s a flash of gold, and a strong arm wraps around his middle. Peter Quill lifts Peter Parker out of the frigid river and into the sky, carrying him towards Crime Alley. He makes it as far as the fire station before flickering out of existence again, cursing. Peter lands hard on the icy alley next to the fire station.

He lays there, shivering and giggling, surrounded by ghosts. He starts to crawl for the fire station wall. He climbs up the wall, teeth chattering, down to just his boxers and socks. The fire station is safe. He knows it is. Uncle Ben worked at a fire station, and Uncle Ben is (was) one half of his security blanket against the world. It’s safe.

The hallucinations around him shift at the thought of Ben. He hears gasping below himself, in the alley. It’s all too familiar to Peter, and he bites back a laughing sob. He can smell the gunpowder. The singed flesh. The blood. It occurs to him, suddenly, that he’s been shot close to where Ben was hit during that fateful night.

“Jesus, what has this kid been through?” Quill asks.

Uncle Ben gasps in pain behind him, back in the alley. Going back down there is a death sentence, but he can’t leave his uncle alone--

“Keep climbing,” T’Challa orders, insistent and reassuring. Peter gets the idea that T’Challa is hovering behind him, as if he intends to block Peter’s view if he turns around. “There is nothing for you to see. Keep going.”

Peter hesitates, and then keeps climbing. He hauls himself in through the window with herculean effort, and starts to laugh.

He’s not sure when he started crying, but he’s doing that, too.

* * *

BATCHAT

Barbara (07:40pm): Status update, guys. Bruce is on the line and he needs to know what’s happening.

Duke (07:41pm): Cass and Steph took out the snipers. Dick’s safe. I have Jason. He’s hurt, but he’s awake. Concussion. How are things on your end?

Barbara (07:42pm): Fielding calls from Bruce and the Titans. Bruce is on his way, but the storm is going to delay him.

Barbara (07:43pm): Any word on Spider-Man?

Duke (07:44pm): Not yet.

Barbara (07:45pm): Keep me updated.

* * *

“Snipers are down,” Spoiler says, her voice made tinny by the speaker of his earpiece. “We just took out the last one. What’s your status, Nightwing?”

“Not hurt,” he says, snapping out of cover and sprinting for the roof ledge as fast as he can.

He leaps off of the building within seconds, fires his grappling gun, and almost burns out the brake as he lowers himself to the ground. Snow stings his face as he falls, and he wipes at it irritably when he drops to the ground, looking around. The scene in front of him is one of chaos and confusion. Blood covers the icy sidewalk, gradually disappearing beneath a layer of snow. Cops are waving in cranes and work crews to disassemble the massive crane suspended between buildings above, all of them moving as quickly as they can before the blizzard makes it impossible to work. Red Robin is speaking with a crowd of people huddled up together; more than a few are speaking animatedly, pointing at the rooftops, the crane, the blood on the ground.

Two-Face and Killer Croc have been retrieved from the rooftops and are sitting on the curb, still bound in thick webbing, cursing at one another viciously as they try to break free. It won’t work, of course. Spider-Man’s webs are unbelievably tough. Batman had even been impressed by them, and that is no easy feat, as Nightwing well knows.

“Well, if it isn’t the party guest,” Killer Croc drawls. “You’re swinging in fashionably late, kid.”

Nightwing stares at him impassively, but the grip on his grappling hook gun grows tight enough to make his knuckles turn white. “Why?”

“I never got the real reason,” Two-Face says, grunting in pain as Killer Croc elbows him while struggling against the webs. “It was supposed to solve a few problems for our employer and keep Batman busy dealing with your death. Win-win.”

“Since when did you work for someone, Two-Face?” Nightwing asks. “Let alone with the Joker and Scarecrow?”

“Since--” he pauses, actually stammers, frowning in confusion before scoffing. “Since none of your business. Results are results.”

Killer Croc chuckles lowly. “Just us and four of our best friends working to put you Bats into place. We didn’t get you but we got someone.”

Nightwing stares at them coldly for a moment, his temper fraying. He almost does it. He almost beats them both into paste then and there on the sidewalk. They tried to kill him. They shot Spider-Man. They beat the hell out of Red Hood. And now they’re going straight to Arkham, where they’ll stay for a few months or years and then break out again.

Red Robin seems to sense it. He looks up from the group he’s speaking with and then quickly shoos them away before walking towards him, calling out. “Nightwing!”

“What have you found?” Nightwing asks, turning away from Killer Croc and stalking towards Red Robin. It comes out as a demand, actually. He’s antsy, practically thrumming with repressed fury and energy.

Red Robin closes the distance between them with a sigh. He rubs the back of his neck. “Witnesses are all over the place. Half of them say an angel caught Spider-Man falling from the sky, half say Batman showed up to scare off the Rogues Gallery, and a third say they saw Spider-Man take a direct hit across the back of his head with a crowbar and shrug it off no problem. After being shot, stringing up a crane, and falling from a skyscraper.”

“That’s wilder than usual,” Nightwing admits, tense. “What have you heard from them that we can trust?”

“Only a few things. The general consensus is that Spider-Man stopped the crane and then took on all of Batman’s worst enemies at the same time before getting saved by Red Hood. And then, well, things went poorly for both of them,” Red Robin says.

He nods to Red Hood, currently getting bundled into a Batmobile by Spoiler and Black Bat. He tries to fight them off, to get up and walk over to Nightwing, but he’s too exhausted, too rattled from the fight. Nightwing isn’t looking forward to the conversation they’re going to have in the future.

“How is he?” Nightwing asks.

“The way he always is after he’s hurt. Pissed,” Red Robin says. “The one thing all of the witnesses can agree on is that he saved Spider-Man from the Joker and then Spider-Man saved him from Clayface. They said Joker poured or threw something into Spider-Man’s face. Spider-Man left after that. Panicked. Joker and Scarecrow made themselves scarce afterward, too.”

A long pause follows that. Nightwing clenches his fists tight enough for the leather of his gloves to creak. He looks at the sidewalk. Splotches of blood have frozen and mixed with the snow and ice, turning it pink.

“Joker’s toxin?” Nightwing asks. “That doesn’t explain why he left. Most people hit with that are too busy laughing to run.”

Or killing people. Nightwing refuses to think of that; it’s so utterly not like Spider-Man that he can’t even imagine it.

“A few of the people I talked to said Joker used a vial that Scarecrow gave him,” Red Robin says after a moment. He jerks his head over towards Two-Face, and Killer Croc, sitting on the sidewalk with their hands and legs bound in chains. “Scarecrow confirmed it. He said it was a new recipe, but he hasn’t had a chance to test it. He wouldn’t tell me if it had any of Joker’s toxin in it.”

“A new version of fear toxin at the very least,” Nightwing says. He can’t afford to think of what that particular concoction is capable of doing to someone. Particularly someone already pumped full of adrenaline from a fight. He knows people who’ve died from fear. “We have to find him before he hurts someone. Or himself.”

"Time isn't on our side, Nightwing," Red Robin says quietly. "The storm is here. We’ll have white out conditions within the next twenty minutes, and temperatures will hit rock bottom not long after. The only benefit we have is that there won’t be very many people outside."

Your friend is going to die of either blood loss or exposure to the cold, but at least he probably won’t kill anyone before he dies, in other words. Tim wouldn't say it like that, but that's his meaning regardless.

"Then we'd better find him in the next twenty minutes," Nightwing snaps.

He says it loud enough that Spoiler and Black Bat’s heads snap up to look in his direction. They can count on one hand how often they've heard Nightwing use that tone. Red Robin blinks, but otherwise only nods, pulling out his grappling gun.

“Witnesses said he was heading north,” Tim says. He has to speak louder now; the snow and wind are starting to pick up in earnest. “We might get lucky and find a trail. This way.”

He launches himself into the air. Nightwing is right behind him, swinging behind his brother.

* * *

Voices. Far away voices that suddenly seem too close or too far. It’s hard to hear them over the laughter that robs him of his breath and tears at his side.

“His emotions are becoming harder to control,” Mantis says, her voice wavering. “He will hurt people unless we stop him.”

“How is that different from normal?” Hank Pym asks. “You’ve been keeping the kid from going apeshit since he woke up in that tube.”

“This is worse. Much worse,” Mantis says. “I am barely keeping his rage away.

“We need to get that toxin out of him,” Fury says. His voice becomes louder, clearer. It feels like the man is right beside his ear, yelling at him. “Parker, get the needle the doctor gave you.”

The needle. It takes his scattered mind a moment to remember what that is. The red packet is near the first aid kit, stacked neatly on a makeshift shelf near his bed. He leaves a trail of blood behind himself as he crawls towards it, giggling helplessly. The laughter is becoming a problem. So is the cold. Peter’s teeth chatter violently as he bumps into the shelf, groping for the packet. He tries to tear it open with numb fingers, and sobs when he can’t manage it.

“Call for help!” Fury orders.

“Helpmehelpme--” Peter chokes out between giggles.

A flash of gold. And suddenly, T’Challa and Bucky are on either side of him. Bucky grabs the packet and tosses it to T’Challa before grabbing Peter in a bearhug, trapping him against his chest. Peter, confused by this sudden attack, starts to fight against him, panicked.

“Easy!” Bucky says, gritting his teeth. “I’m holding you still so T’Challa can hit you with that antitoxin. And warming you up. You’re freezing, kid.”

“How--” Peter starts.

T’Challa tears open the packet and presses the tip of the autoinjector to the side of Peter’s leg. He hits the plunger. Something sharp stabs Peter’s leg, followed by twitching heat that traces its way through his veins. Peter gasps and whimpers. Bucky’s hold loosens a little.

“Keep it in place,” Bucky says. “Remember what the doc said. Has it been more than thirty minutes?”

“I have no idea. Time does not work for us the way it works for him. We will simply have to hope not,” T’Challa says. He keeps the autoinjector steady with one hand and reaches over to grab Peter’s first aid kit with the other, tossing it over to Bucky. “White Wolf--”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Peter’s focus wavers and disappears when the heat traveling through his body reaches his gunshot wound. Without Bucky to support him, he flops back onto the cold ground with a pained moan. The autoinjector falls beside him, rattling against the cold floor.

* * *

“I’ve called the Coast Guard,” Red Robin says, he has to shout to be heard above the wind. “They can’t send out anybody right now. The storm is too violent. If he’s there...”

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to. The river is starting to freeze; icy shards of water clumping together and breaking apart in the tide. Falling into the waves on a good night would be dangerous. Falling into it during a violent storm, while already injured and panicked from fear toxin is a death sentence. They won’t know for sure, of course. The body won’t wash ashore; Gotham’s river never gives up its dead in winter. The frigid temperature affects decomposition. Bodies just sink.

It’s possible he made it out somehow. Maybe with his web slinging. But even that’s a thin hope. Spider-Man would be disoriented and confused from the frigid water. Nightwing’s fallen into the river once before, and if Batman hadn’t been able to pull him out of it, he would’ve drowned. That was during a relatively peaceful night during the summer, the polar opposite of the rough waves and brutal wind cutting through the city right now.

Nightwing stares at the bloodied suit swirling in the water’s turbulent surface. He says nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Red Robin says after a moment.

"He was only here because I asked for him," Nightwing says quietly. "It was--it wasn't supposed to go like this! If I had just gone by myself, like I planned--"

"Then you would’ve taken a bullet to the back of the head without realizing how much trouble you were in," Red Robin says, voice thick and weary. The cold is wearing on him. "He saved you. And then he saved Jason and who knows how many other people."

Nightwing sighs, weary. “Yeah. He did.”

“Nightwing?” Oracle asks. “You’ve got a visitor heading your way.”

Nightwing frowns, reaching up to key up his earpiece. “Who?”

“Starfire. I tried to contact the Titans when I couldn’t reach the rest of the crew,” Oracle says. “She’s on her way to you right now. My message might have upset her. I’ve managed to head off most of the Justice League, but the Titans...Well.”

Nightwing winces. He’s seen the Batchat. He can only imagine the kind of panic that would inspire in the Titans. He’d be a furious wreck himself if the positions were reversed and someone set up an elaborate assassination attempt on her.

“Got it, Oracle. I’ll wait for her here,” Nightwing says, sitting at the edge of the bridge. He sounds tired, even to himself.

Red Robin glances at him for a moment, and then sits beside him. They watch the turbulent waters pull the bloodied suit beneath the waves in silence.

* * *

The panic leaves Peter gradually. The confusion drains away bit by bit after that. He doesn’t fully come back to himself until the fire in his veins lessens to an uncomfortable heat, and his laughter dies down to rough, chuckling coughs. He has no idea how much time has passed. In fact, he’s not entirely sure of what’s happened to him. His memories are all jumbled together. One minute, he’s swinging through the city in abject panic and fear, and the next he’s laying in the middle of the firehouse, confused, mostly naked, and trembling from blood loss and exhaustion. His side is white hot agony. His skin is drenched in half frozen blood. He’s rocking in place, as if trying to comfort himself, confused and upset, and weak. Something important happened--something bad--

"The gunshot wound." Sam hisses at him. Peter can almost see him. It’s like looking through a transparent pane of glass. He can see Sam, but also see through him to the other side of the room. There’s a faint trace of gold outlining his body. "You need to get that taken care of!"

Right. The gunshot wound.

"Stop the bleeding. Get some clothes on. Go outside, try to flag someone down--" Bucky starts.

Peter grabs his first aid kit. Well, actually, he crawls for it. He doesn’t have to go far for it. It’s resting right beside him.

"What the hell are you doing?” Bucky snaps. “Go outside! Find a bat! Find a goddamned cab--”

He holds the first aid kit, frowning at it. His mind is spinning, and he’s having trouble making connections between things. He knows he has a bad gunshot wound. He knows it needs to be taken care of. He knows he’s holding a first aid kit that can help. But those three ideas are separate things, and he can’t string them together into any kind of action. Whatever was in that autoinjector is strong. It's like a house with the lights turned off inside. He giggles to himself every so often, jarring his wound, and he can't figure out why. He's laughed nervously before, but not by himself. And it isn't just laughter. There's a jerky, twitchy movement to his limbs when he laughs. It’s going to make this DIY surgery--already a sketchy decision, considering his trembling hands--even riskier than usual.

“He can’t be serious,” Bucky says. “If he tries to take care of that gunshot wound himself, he’ll fuck it up and die.”

“If he asks for help, Mom and I can handle it. I can shrink the bullet, and Mom still has some power left. Quantum healing should be able to handle all of those wounds,” Hope says.

“He can’t focus long enough for any of us to stay longer than a few seconds,” Hill says. “Even if he manages to use the Stone to summon us, we won’t be able to stay long enough to help.”

“There might be a way to work around that,” Loki says, as if reluctant to mention it at all. “It will come at great cost to us. Me, in particular, which I’m not personally thrilled about.”

“Do it,” Fury orders.

“I’m not sure you understand--” Loki begins.

“I understand what I’ll do to you if you don’t do as I goddamn say,” Fury retorts. “Do. It.”

“Fine,” Loki spits. “The consequences will be on your head, then.”

“I can live with that,” Fury replies dryly.

Loki curses, but goes silent. Peter stares at the first aid kit, then at the packet that held the antidote to Joker’s toxin. A small warning is printed along the side of it: May cause confusion and hallucinations. Do not administer alone except in dire circumstances.

Huh.

“Peter, you need to ask us for help again,” Shuri says, drawing him out of his confusion.

That’s a good idea.

"Help me," he gasps, to no one in particular.

Peter is blinded by another flash of gold, this one mixed with tendrils of red and green. Sam flashes gold for a moment. He turns from a strange, orange translucent color to something far more solid. He reaches his hands out, and he puts hard pressure over the wound. Sharp enough to make Peter gasp and wince beneath his hands.

“We need to get you to a goddamn hospital,” he snarls, putting on yet more pressure. His tone is by turns furious, heartbroken, and terrified. “What the hell were you thinking taking on all of those fools by yourself--”

Peter stares up at him dumbly. “Are you real?”

“Yes, goddammit! Stay awake. I need to get you stable,” he says. Several more flashes of gold flare to life around them, but Peter can’t see what’s happening. Sam is hovering over him protectively. He glances over his shoulder for a moment. “Janet, Hope, if you’re going to do it, do it now.”

“We’re all set here,” Janet says, somehow maintaining a calm and pleasant tone despite everything. “Hope?”

“Keep him still,” Hope says to Sam, flipping her helmet down before disappearing. There’s no flash of gold this time; she’s just gone.

A second later, Peter hears the telltale buzz of a wasp’s wings and Sam pulls his hands back just a bit. Something flies between Sam’s bloody fingers and into Peter’s gunshot wound. That’s enough to make the blind panic return. He doesn’t want something inside him--

“Easy, easy,” Janet says soothingly. “Hope is going to get the bullet out. Just lay still.”

Something shifts inside the bullet wound; a pressure and stiffness disappears completely, if the bullet’s been plucked out of him. Something flies out from beneath Sam’s fingers and Hope reappears behind Janet and Sam. She flicks something out from between her fingers; a tiny metal pebble by the sound it makes when it pings off of the floor.

“Shuri? We need you, switch off with me,” Hope says.

Another flash, and two others appear near him. Princess Shuri and Dr. Strange. Hope disappears.

"Princess--" Sam starts.

"Hold him steady," Shuri orders, plucking a bead off of her bracelet. "Move your hands when I say."

"Yes, ma'am," Sam says. He glances at Strange. "Doc? We good?"

"Make it quick. Loki, Wanda, and I can't keep this up for long. Death isn’t meant to be cheated like this," Strange says quietly, gently gathering golden energy between his palms. They tremble from the effort and sweat stands out against his brow. Ashes begin to fall from his hands. "You have five minutes. Tops."

“We’ll only need one,” Shuri says confidently. Sam pulls his hands back again, and Shuri presses in the sides of the bead, spraying something into Peter’s wound. It’s cold, whatever it is, sharp enough to make Peter grunt in pain. “Dr. Van Dyne?”

Janet kneels beside her. “I don’t have a lot of power left. Most of it went to help Ghost.”

“But you do still have some?” Shuri asks.

Janet nods, rolling up her sleeves. “Yes.”

“Every little bit helps right now,” Sam replies, pressing hard against Peter’s wound. Whatever Shuri did slowed the bleeding, but Sam isn’t taking any chances, apparently. “Do your thing.”

“Right. Okay. Peter, you’re going to feel warm for a bit,” Janet says, keeping her tone calm. Her hands glow, and she cups his face. “I need you to promise me something, okay?”

Peter startles at her touch, and then leans into it. Janet’s face softens. “Okay.”

“You need to rest and then you need to go find help,” Janet says. “You’re going to feel tired, and it’ll be hard to wake up, but you have to get up. Promise me you’ll do it.”

As she speaks, a gentle golden light flows from her hands and across Peter. It covers him like a warm blanket, drying him off from his dip in the river, and spreads across him, hovering over the cuts Scarecrow left on his chest and legs, the blue black bruises Joker’s crowbar left behind, and the bullet wound. The bruises lighten and disappear and the cuts seal shut, but the bullet wound takes more. The skin closes and seals, but it doesn’t heal completely; Peter can feel his healing factor kick in to help.

“Okay,” Peter mumbles, relaxing into the warmth. “Okay, I promise. After I sleep.”

Sam pulls his hands back for a moment, and sighs in relief. “It’s closed. He’s going to have a nasty scar, but I think we did it.”

Janet’s shoulders slump and she pulls her hands back. “That’s all I’ve got. I’m sorry, I have to go back.”

“Go ahead,” Shuri says. “Sam and I can do the rest.”

Another flash of gold, and Janet disappears back into the Soul stone. Dr. Strange is pale, shaking, and struggling to maintain the spells keeping them corporeal. Sam takes one look at him and then starts to move.

“Get his bed ready. I’m going to get him dressed, and then we need to get the hell out of here before Doc, Loki, and Wanda burn out their souls doing this,” he says.

“Will he be warm enough to survive the night? The blizzard is gaining strength,” Shuri says, already moving.

“Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll just have to hope so,” Sam says helplessly. “There isn’t a damn thing we can do to help him after this. I feel like I’ve been swimming through molasses, and it gets worse the longer I’m here.”

Peter feels himself being manhandled into his warmest clothes. Jeans, shirt, socks, his coat, shoes. If he was more awake, he’d be mortified by this, embarrassed that he needs help at all. But he’s too out of it, too warm, too exhausted to complain. Strong hands carry him over to his bed where he’s wrapped up and tucked away beneath his blankets and spare clothes.

Peter blinks up at Sam and Shuri from under the blankets, and then drifts off to sleep. His side burns and itches by turns, but even that isn’t enough to keep him awake.

“I can’t hold it much longer--” Dr. Strange warns. Most of his lower half is gone, flaking away into smoldering ash. He’s pale and shaking from pain. “Loki isn’t faring much better. Are you--”

“We’re done,” Shuri says hurriedly. “Break the connection, Dr. Strange.”

Dr. Strange clenches his fists and dismisses the spell, disappearing with Sam and Shuri in another flash of light.

Peter sleeps, unaware of the world outside of his fire station.