Dark Matter

Steve feels like he should feel some kind of awe or wonder as they fly through space. Actually, that's a lie. He does feel something, but it’s a muted kind of wonder. The stars are beautiful, the vast void humbling, and the distance is unfathomable. When he considers his humble beginnings to now, he boggles at it all.

Their ship is drifting through a system full of shrapnel. Rocket and Thor guide their ship through a field of twisted metal that ranges from the size of small villages to entire continents. Most of it drifts aimlessly, swirling around a red giant star that burns sullenly at the heart of the system.

The ship is cramped, and mostly silent, the few conversations taking place small and mostly tactical in nature. Every word is punctuated by the steady beeps that indicate another sensor sweep through the void.

"Anything?" Natasha asks.

"There's nothing out there but dust, wreckage, and bodies," Rhodey says. "I can't even find power sources when my scans do get through the dust.”

"Every one of Thanos’ prison planets is gone," Clint says. "Carol’s taking matters into her hands, I guess."

“That isn’t a sound strategy. Unless she was looking for someone?” Okoye asks.

"Maybe," Rhodey says. “Or getting revenge.”

“That seems pretty in character for you lot, being the Avengers and all,” an exhausted voice says from the doorway leading into the back of the ship. The newest member of their team, John Constantine, staggers into the main compartment. He looks exhausted, and rubs his eyes with a long, drawn out sigh.

"Finished with your magic working?" Wong asks, curious and polite. The new Sorcerer Supreme has taken an interest in Constantine, and understandably so. Banner has mentioned more than once that Wong treats Constantine not unlike Dr. Strange.

Steve has to take his word for it; he’s never met Dr. Strange, after all.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did," Constantine mutters.

"What exactly were you--"

"Can't tell you. Sorry, mate," Constantine says, shrugging. "Your doctor friend was awfully strict about that. Said it'd change the timeline, and he doesn’t want to keep track of any new variables."

Wong considers that, and nods, accepting the answer after a moment.

“Don’t suppose any of you have got a drink on hand,” Constantine says, after a long moment.

Thor hands him a flask. Constantine pauses, shocked that someone actually does have a drink, before swiping it from Thor’s hand and taking a deep drink. He lets out a coughing oof, and draws back from the flask, making a face.

“What the hell is this?” he asks, his voice raspy.

“Asgardian mead. You share it with your brothers and sisters before entering battle, so that your destinies are entwined, for good or ill,” Thor says, eye focused on the console in front of him. The electronic--bionic, Steve corrects himself, though the difference is a bit lost on him--eye is currently sitting in a modified port, recharging, and repairing itself. The damn thing twitches around in the console like a real eye, and Steve shifts uncomfortably when it focuses on him. “It’s a hero’s drink.”

“Explains why it goes down so poorly with me, then,” Constantine mutters before taking a deep drink. He lets out another quiet cough.

"No one’s here," Rocket says from the pilot’s seat, his face twisted into a scowl. “It’s just dust and scrap.”

“No, something is there, rabbit,” Thor says easily. “We need to fine tune your scanning tools and push through the debris field. Banner, try--”

Steve half listens to the astrogation discussion, letting his mind wander. Constantine, apparently as uninterested as Steve, taps his arm with the flask of mead.

"Penny for your thoughts, Supes?" he asks.

"That's one of the weirder nicknames I've gotten," Steve remarks, unsure of whether he likes the nickname or not. "And I'm regretting leaving so quickly. I wish I had thought to leave a note for the support group I run. I think I was finally starting to really help our youngest member."

Constantine tilts his head, apparently willing to listen. Steve continues.

"His name’s Ned Leeds. He’s sixteen," Steve says. "Brilliant kid. He's terrified of sleeping."

"Yeah? How come?"

"The Snap happened while he was taking a nap at after coming home from school. He woke up three hours after the Snap happened to an empty house. His whole family and most of his friends disappeared while he slept." Steve sighs. "I worked through something similar once. I think I helped him but..."

“That’s not easy to work through as a grown man, let alone some teenager,” Constantine mutters. He looks haunted for a moment, then takes a drink and silently passes the flask over to Steve.

Steve takes it out of politeness, considers it for a moment, and then takes a quick drink. The mead is heavy, sharp and surprisingly bitter. He can actually taste and feel the alcohol in it and silently decides to cut off Constantine from the rest. Instead, he offers it to Thor, who takes the flask, drinks, and caps it before putting it back on his belt.

“I’ve got something,” Natasha says. “Rocket, look at the coordinates I’m sending you.”

“You have more than something,” Rocket replies, tensing. “That’s a damn war juggernaut.”

“What’s that?” Steve asks.

Rocket pauses, clearly at a loss. He doesn’t know how to answer a question that, to him, should have a blatantly obvious answer. Fortunately, Thor picks up the slack.

“Imagine the helicarrier from SHIELD, but the size of a planet,” Thor explains.

“An invasion platform,” Natasha says quietly.

Rocket keeps the ship tucked behind large pieces of debris, matching the ship’s velocity with a nearby piece of hull the size of New York City. The juggernaut is ship of enormous proportions; Steve simply doesn’t have the ability to judge the size of interstellar objects. That’s more of a Tony thing, and something Steve would not-so-innocently pretend to not understand to get a rise out of the man during better times--

Times that would never happen again, as it turns out.

“I recognize this,” Rocket says. “It’s The Inevitable. The Black Order’s main military flotilla. Each part of the thing can come apart and attack multiple planets and targets at once, then reattach. Gamora told me about it awhile back.”

“It’s taken damage, and the fleet assigned to its protection has been scrapped,” Rhodey says. “Look--”

Just as Rhodey is about to point at something on the vast ship, a huge gout of flame silently expands from one end of the massive ship, bright enough to illuminate nearby debris before fading into nothing. The Avengers are silent for a moment.

"I think we just found Carol," Natasha remarks. "Let's make contact and get her out of here before Thanos starts looking for his invasion fleet. Rocket, can you get us close?”

“I can probably land on top of it,” Rocket says, leaning forward to push the flight sticks down. The ship gains momentum, sliding down towards the ship. “Doesn’t seem like there’s anyone manning the guns, so to speak.”

Landing takes no time at all and drives home how unbelievably huge The Inevitable is. Rocket’s ship--not his true ship; apparently the Benatar is still MIA--is some other design: one big enough to carry the Avengers and enough supplies to keep them warm and fed in the void, and no more. The Inevitable dwarfs it. Rocket lands his ship near a hole that’s been torn in the ship, engaging the landing gear and hitting a series of buttons too fast for Steve to track.

“Well, no one shot us down,” Rhodey remarks.

“Great job, team,” Constantine says.

“I’ve got a forcefield around us and the hole. There’s air inside, so their life support forcefields are still at work. We’d better make this fast, though. I don’t want to be here if your friend decides to start ripping apart the hyper engine,” Rocket says, hopping down from the pilot’s seat and grabbing his gun.

“This is still a warship,” Steve says, standing up and moving to retrieve his shield. He doesn’t understand space very well, but he does understand missions. Thanos’ warship won’t be any different than the other strange machines he’s fought inside. “Be careful everyone.”

* * *

They leave the ship, slipping through the hole and the invisible forcefield holding in the atmosphere. It’s a long, slow crowl through the hole into the ship.

Someone has punched a human sized hole into the hull of the ship, tearing through several dozen feet of thick metal. Steve can see handprints in the metal, as if someone simply pulled it apart like clay. Impressive, and concerning; Carol seemed like a steady, practical woman when they met. Why would she suddenly attack Thanos and his invasion fleet without back up? Without checking in?

Natasha and Clint are the first ones to drop into the main ship. Steve drops down beside them, pulling his shield off of his back and bracing himself for a fight. The others drop down behind him, all of them keeping their backs to one another.

“Oh, what the hell is this,” Clint says quietly.

The room is wide, tall, and full of machines whose purpose Steve can only guess at. Rows of tall glass tubes run the length of the room, most of them shattered or broken, with a few holding a strange green substance inside. There are at least two dozen of them in this room alone, gleaming in the dim light.

“Cloning vats?” Okoye suggests.

“Not unless they’re cloning werewolf sized bats,” Rhodey says, aiming a light over one of the few solid tubes remaining.

Something broad, tall, and bristling with muscle floats in a vat of sickly green liquid, arms lax beside it. A pair of massive bat-like wings press against the inside of the glass.

“That looks like an outrider,” Natasha says. “Except they’ve changed the top pair of arms into a pair of wings.”

“That’s an odd choice. Thanos has advanced tech. He could just give his armies jet packs,” Banner says.

“Tech doesn’t survive a jump between dimensions very well,” Constantine mutters. “Not unless it’s protected in a magic field or something. Too much work to give everyone that kind of treatment.”

Something moves in the shadows above them. Steve catches it first.

“Above us!” he shouts.

Clint reacts first, firing one of his custom arrows into the darkness. It strikes home, landing with a solid thunk that’s shortly followed by a bellowing roar of pain. One of the bat-like creatures falls from the ceiling and lands in front of them, tearing the arrow out of its wing with a furious hiss.

The wound seals up with an eerie green glow.

“Well, that’s not fair,” Banner mutters.

The bat monster roars in fury. Dozens of eyes appear in the shadows along the ceiling, and answering shrieks and snarls echo down from above. Steve is reminded of the outrider horde in Wakanda, the sound of their bloodthristy shrieks echoing back and forth in the metallic room. The monsters fall on them from above, one swooping low to drag claws along Rhodey’s armor while another hits Banner with a full tackle, tearing at the Hulk with its claws and fangs.

The Avengers snap into action: Clint fires more arrows at the horde, knocking them out of the sky and briefly disabling them while the rest of the team brace themselves against the oncoming tide. Okoye switches between firing blasts from her spear and using the vibranium tipped blade to stab or slice anything that gets near. Natasha slips through the horde almost unseen, using a well placed knife to distract or disable the monsters so that Banner can smash them flat. A few survive the knives; none survive the Hulk. Constantine and Wong play rear guard; Wong with a well placed teleportation portal, and Constantine with a gout of fire he summons with a simple snap of his fingers.

Steve leaps into the fray, moving through the fight to support the others or play bait for the horde. He uses his shield to knock back a bat monster from Natasha’s flank before turning to fling it in an underhanded throw towards one sneaking up behind Constantine. The man jumps, startled, apparently unused to having someone cover his blindspot. He gives Steve a startled, thankful nod, and then incinerates the monster that had been sneaking up behind him. Steve moves into the heart of the fight, where he’s always felt most at home.

The monsters are almost endless. More and more are crawling out of tubes, along the ceilings, from the shadowy corners of the room. There’s no end to them. The Avengers are holding their own, but the quicker they end this battle, the better.

“Thor, we could use a bit of lightning here!” Steve calls out, catching one of the monsters by the wing and bodily flinging it against the nearest wall. It hits the steel wall hard enough to dent it, with more of that strange green blood seeping out of its mouth. It falls limply to the ground, healing.

“And you will have it!” Thor calls back, his voice booming. “Avengers, behind me!”

“What’s he going to--” Constantine starts.

“Get behind him!” Wong shouts back.

The air fills with the smell of ozone and heat. Steve ducks into a doorway leading into another vast, dark room and raises his shield just before the first bolt of lightning strikes home. A flash of light, and an almost deafening crack of thunder follows. The bat monsters shriek in pain, dying by the scores. Steve can hear Constantine’s impressed and horrified, ‘Fucking hell!’ sound off in the silence before the next round of lightning comes from Thor. Again, there’s a near blinding flash of light that illuminates both the room the Avengers are in and a part of the room Steve is standing in---

Something golden glints in the darkness. Steve tenses, going utterly still as another crack of thunder echoes. The battle restarts, but there are much less monsters to fight. He ignores it and focuses on this new room. The room is dark and still and vast. Steve stalks through it, silent and alert, gripping his shield. He can hear the Avengers fighting the strange bat monsters behind him. The battle is well in hand between all of them, leaving Steve free to seek out the larger shadow in the dark.

He hears a the near silent step of a foot behind him, and something heavy and metal slicing through the air towards him. He snaps his arm up just in time to knock it aside, sending a shower of blinding sparks through the air that disappear almost as quickly as they appear. He sees the shape of a woman, a flash of gold, and then nothing.

He blocks the next two strikes with his shield, each of them landing hard enough to make his teeth rattle. Each one sends another shower of sparks into the air and small bursts of force from his shield shedding extra kinetic energy from the woman’s blows. The woman has a shield, like him, and she’s wearing armor; something Grecian in design. She’s strong. Damn strong. And unbelievably fast.

Steve doesn’t have time to think beyond those lightning fast observations; it’s all instinct and hard won experience from previous battles. The shieldbearing woman never lands a hit on anything but his shield, but the same is true for him. This woman is at least as strong as Thor, and that presents a problem. On good days, Steve is equal to Thor in battle. On really good days, using a combination of skill and luck, Steve can beat Thor--but never for long.

Their stalemate lasts for another three blows. On the last one, he’s too slow to raise his shield and she knocks his helmet loose with another shower of sparks. His opponent raises her shield, ready to knock him flat--and hesitates when she sees his face in the light. The woman stares at him, momentarily startled, as her eyes meet his. He snatches his helmet out of the air before it can fall and pulls it back on, putting distance between himself and the woman.

Captain America is a paragon of virtue, a legendary hero, and an honorable man.

Steve Rogers of Brooklyn, however, knows that there's no such thing as a fair fight, especially when it comes to someone bigger and faster than you. That goes double for someone stronger than him who fights as hard as Thor and with just as much skill. Steve needs to take whatever advantage he can get.

He charges her, closing the distance between them with inhuman speed, and slams the front of his helmet into her face. It feels a lot like he just ran headfirst into a wall; his teeth rattle and he feels a part of his helmet--built from metal that’s the next best thing to vibranium--actually dent from the force of the blow.

He also feels the woman rock back on her heels, startled.

That’s terrifying. On anyone else, a hit that hard would cave their head in.

Okay, no holding back--

"Easy! Easy, you two!" Constantine shouts.

The room fills with light, courtesy of a glowing orb hovering above John Constantine’s hand. He sprints into the room, neatly sliding between Steve and the warrior woman, palms out. The glowing orb of light gently hovers in place, illuminating the room.

"Calm down! Put the shields down!” Constantine orders.

Steve skids to a halt, staring at Constantine. His initial instinct is to shove him aside before the woman hurts him--

The woman stops in her tracks, lowering her shield, shocked. “Constantine?”

“Hi,” Constantine says, relaxing slightly when he sees both Steve and the woman have stopped. He still looks back and forth between them, ready to dive out of the way at a moment’s notice. "Right. Okay. Seems we need an introduction.”

“You know her?” Steve asks.

“Sure do,” Constantine says. He turns to the woman. “ Wonder Woman, meet the Avengers. Think 'Justice League' but uh. Not as big and ten times more dysfunctional."

“Hey,” Clint calls out, walking in from the next room. He eyes the group warily, but lowers his bow when Steve waves him off.

“Sorry, mate, but it’s true,” Constantine calls back. He turns back to Steve. “Captain, meet Wonder Woman. One of our best and brightest.”

Before Steve can respond, the rest of the Avengers run in. Thor stops dead in his tracks, staring at Wonder Woman with nothing short of utter shock. His hands drop limply to his sides, nearly dropping the massive war axe he’d used moments ago against the monsters.

“You okay there, big guy?” Rhodey asks.

“Do you not recognize a goddess when you see one?” Thor asks, a thread of awe in his voice. He approaches Wonder Woman. “You’re an Amazon, from Themyscira. How have you come to be in this place?”

The woman turns and looks at them, keeping her shield lowered. Steve can see she’s using more than just a shield; a broad, Grecian styled sword and bright golden rope are secured to her belt.

She frowns, warily glancing at Constantine before answering. “I was captured after a battle in my world. A man brought me my weapons and freed me from my cell.”

“A man?” Constantine asks. “Tall bloke with a fancy, living cape?”

“No. Someone else. I did not get his name,” Wonder Woman says. “I found Captain Marvel after I was freed, and we began to dismantle the Black Order’s fleet not long after that.”

“Yeesh, there’s like nine planet sized prisons and who knows how many ships floating around out there,” Rocket says, impressed.

“We have kept busy,” Wonder Woman remarks, her tone a bit wry.

“Remind me to not piss you off, lady.”

“Where is Captain Marvel?” Natasha asks.

“I don’t know,” Wonder Woman says, frustration threading through her words. “She said she was heading for the communications array to contact the Avengers. I have not seen her since.”

“She might be in trouble,” Banner says.

“If she’s still got her pager thing, I can try to send her a message,” Rhodey offers. “No promises it’ll work. We’re dealing with hopped up nineties tech.”

“It’s worth a try,” Natasha tells him. “Give it a shot.”

The more technologically minded part of the team gathers around Rhodey while he works. Banner, Rocket, and even Okoye offer their own input. Rhodey takes it with a lot more grace than Tony would have.

Wonder Woman is staring at him, watching him with a strange expression caught somewhere between shock and confusion. He tilts his head towards her respectfully, idly adjusting the shield on his arm.

“Is everything all right, ma’am?” he asks, perfectly polite.

That chases away the shock and brings in nostalgia--and grief. He can see it plainly on her face; Wonder Woman has lost someone. Maybe someone who looks and sounds a lot like him.

“Apologies. You reminded me of someone for a moment,” she says. She offers him her hand. “Princess Diana of Themyscira. You may call me Diana.”

Steve takes her hand and shakes it firmly. “Steve, Captain America. Just call me Steve. And thank you for helping us out. God knows we could use all the help we can get these days.”

Even his name seems to trigger another of those fond looks. She’s not seeing Steve Rogers; she’s seeing someone else entirely, someone with his name and possibly his face. It’s there and gone in an instant, but he feels a sudden kinship with Diana. He still has moments like that with Natasha.

“It was my pleasure,” she says. She considers him for a moment and says, simply, “You are a skilled warrior. You carry your shield well.”

And then she walks off. Thor stands beside him, awestruck.

Steve looks at him and nudges him with an elbow. “You sure you’re okay, Thor?”

“You have no idea how rare it is to earn the praise of an Amazon. Even minor praise,” Thor says after a moment. “If Valkyrie were here, she would kill you out of jealousy.”

“I’m glad she isn’t here, then," Steve replies dryly, though Thor has already turned to face Constantine.

"You did not tell us that you are an agent of Themyscira," Thor says to Constantine.

"If they ever get so desperate as to claim me as one of their agentsthen that magic island's in dire straits indeed," Constantine drawls. "She’s part of the League. We’re coworkers, of a sort."

“Of a sort?” Steve asks.

“Yeah, you know. See each other at the annual parties, politely say hello, otherwise stay the hell away from each other in case our mutual baddies decide to trade off,” Constantine says. He pauses. “That said, I’d pay a lot of money to see her go into Hell and meet some of my regulars."

"No luck calling Carol," Rhodey says, cutting off their conversation.

"Someone's near the communications side of the ship," Rocket adds, stepping forward. His presence startles Diana for a moment, but she recovers quickly. "There's full power there, and it looks like they're about to send out a signal. Internal sensors are going nuts. I don’t think they're alone."

“We must hurry,” Diana says, cutting off their conversation. “Captain Marvel may be in danger.”

“Rhodey, you lead the way. We’ll follow behind,” Natasha says. She spares a look at Diana. “Maybe you can help fill in the blanks for us on the way. I’d like to know how you got here.”

“I will do my best,” Diana says.

* * *

BATCHAT

Barbara (02:15am): So I can’t help but notice that someone has gotten into our arsenal lately

Barbara (02:20am): Exactly how many incendiary bullets and grenades do you need to finish one (1) patrol, again?

Barbara (02:35am): Jason, if you’re going out there alone, you should at least check in with me.

Jason (03:00am): Something is happening in the Alley

Barbara (03:01am): What’s going on?

Jason (03:02am): The manbat things are back, and they're fucking huge.

Barbara (03:03am): How many?

Barbara (03:10am): Jason?

Barbara (03:11am): Dammit.

Bruce (03:12am): What’s his last location?

Barbara (03:14am): Suddenly and violently reminded of the fact that you actually read this. Horrifying.

Barbara (03:15am): He removed all of his trackers. They just spell ‘fuck you’ now.

Barbara (03:15am): I can send you a general area.

Bruce (03:16am): On my way. Keep me informed.

* * *

Peter dreams of home.

Well, he dreams of a home. Maybe the home; the image of all of his various homes over the course of his life. The comfortable townhome his parents owned that holds a strange nostalgic grief, Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s smaller apartment that always seems warm and sunny, and the apartment he and May moved into not long after Ben’s death, which is no less warm, but a bit less sunny. Even the fire station he’s been living inside of for the past several months edges into appearance every now and then, though he tries to ignore that. It’s as if his mind told itself to summon up home and, failing to choose, simply yanked up every version of home he’s experienced so far.

“If this is your idea of ‘home’ then you should perhaps thank the mother hen that’s taken you under his wing,” Loki drawls from beside him. “He’s at least taken you to something approaching acceptable shelter on a planet as backwards as this.”

His appearance is so sudden, so clear, that Peter lets out a startled yelp of shock.

“It’s odd the Wayne Manor hasn’t leaked into your dreams yet,” Loki adds, plainly ignoring Peter’s shock. “I suppose that’s only a matter of time, however.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Peter asks.

“I’m here to help you.”

“Help me?” Peter asks.

“I’ve used an Infinity Stone before, but not in the way that you have,” Loki says, his tone somehow thoughtful and arrogant all at once. “The stone chose you. That changes things, though I’m not sure how. Nor is anyone else, I’m afraid. Regardless, I can give you the basics.”

“Why would you do that?” Peter asks. He pauses and adds, “And why can I see you? I thought all of you ghosts were a little...you know. Under the weather.”

“Oh, they’re not sick. They just don’t want to hurt you by using your life force to manifest nearby. I am, however, older and more practiced than them,” Loki explains. “And we’ve all gained in strength since you finally started taking care of yourself instead of living on the street like a wretched orphan.”

Peter sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, his patience already thin. “Loki, I do not need this right now--”

“Do not banish me until I’ve said my piece,” Loki says, pointing at Peter. “You’re in dire need of a teacher. Fortunately, you have me.”

“I thought you were the god of mischief, not the god of teachers,” Peter says.

“Trickster gods are often the best teachers,” Loki says, idly poking around the apartment. He doesn’t seem terribly impressed by most of it, but he’s careful to not interrupt the translucent memories of May bustling around the apartment. “And we are running out of time. You need to learn as much from me as you can.”

“Uh. Right,” Peter says warily. “Starting with what?”

“Starting with the most important advice you’ll ever hear: magic lies. Magic users are the biggest liars you’ll ever meet.” He claps his hands. “Now, with that out of the way, I have a few tricks to burrow into that thick skull of yours. Pay attention to everything I say.”

Peter quirks an eyebrow at him. “Including the lies?”

Loki grins, genuine and just shy of feral. “Especially the lies, little spider.” He nods to Peter. “Now, summon the stone.”

“How do I do that?”

“You’ll have to use your brain for that,” Loki says dryly.

Peter glares at him for a moment, pointedly turns away from him, and thinks.

A heavy, warm weight falls into his hand, thrumming with power. It reminds Peter of an Arc Reactor, but amplified to a power of a million. The stone bathes the home of made of memory in a seething orange light that overpowers the room until he frowns at it and thinks ‘stop being so bright’ at it.

The light dims to something approaching acceptable. It’s still bright, but its light equals that of ‘checking your phone at 2am with full brightness’ rather than ‘power of the freaking sun.’ He examines the stone, turning it over in his hand. Aside from the light and feeling of power, it’s really not all that impressive.

Okay, so he has the soul stone. Aunt May said he should learn how to control that. Loki wants to help him learn how to control it. How, exactly, is one supposed to do that?

“By gaining control of your own soul,” Loki says. “The stone hasn’t yet melded with you. You spent so much time ignoring it that the process has stalled. You’ll need to restart.”

“Stop reading my mind,” Peter says, examining the stone. “And how do I gain control of my own soul?”

Loki tilts his head, quirking an eyebrow at Peter. “What is a soul?”

That is so far beyond Peter’s knowledge that it’s almost laughable. He gives Loki an exasperated look. “How the hell should I know?”

Loki rolls his eyes. “Fine, we’ll save the interesting discussion for another time. You’re no fun, for the record.”

“Thanks.”

“Your mind is scattered. I don’t mean that in the normal way mortal minds are scattered--though you are an astounding example of that, too--I mean that you are not yet whole after your experience in that little resurrection machine,” Loki explains. “Your memories are there, but drifting. Were it not for the alien woman, you would be nothing but rage and grief. She’s the reason you came out of that machine with any kind of sanity.”

That’s a scary thought. "So, what do I do?”

Loki shrugs. “Heal. Think of home. Grieve. Attain some level of acceptable mental health. The rage inside you is dying, slowly, and that will help you access the stone’s power. In fact, you started to accept the stone’s power months ago. And it’s a good thing you did. None of us would have been able to speak with you or help you without it.”

Peter frowns at him. “When did I do that?”

“When you were building that little trinket of yours. The radio. You drifted back into your own past. It dampened that green rage.”

Peter blinks. He had been thinking of the radio he’d built for Tony during their first few meetings after the whole Vulture affair. He remembers that moment at the firehouse when he felt himself pulled back into the memory, half hearing Tony as he worked.

“I have to, what, relive my memories?”

“That’s a simplified version, but I suppose it will do.”

“Huh,” Peter says, thoughtful. “Okay.”

“And just as a friendly heads up: we’ll see them, too. All of us ghosts,” Loki adds, drifting away in a swirl of orange ash. “Be mindful of what memories you focus on.”

And then he’s gone. Peter is left standing alone in his dream, holding one of the infinity stones in his hand.

Memories, he thinks.

A strange, buzzing sound fills the dream. The noise fills the room, then beyond it, and Peter--

* * *

--wakes up to sound of his alarm, and gentle knocking on his door.

Peter flops a hand out from under the blankets, smacks everything on the night stand at least twice before managing to find the button to silence the alarm. He picks up the Nightwing figurine and steadies it before groaning in frustration at being pulled from sleep. He stays like that for a moment, and then sits up, running a hand through his hair and sighing.

He feels strange. Anxious in a way he can’t quite articulate. A singular, constant, buzzing itch at the back of his neck.

“Hey, Pete,” Dick calls out through the door. “Get up and get dressed. Alfred’s got us both booked up for the day. We’re due for a suit fitting after breakfast.”

“Got it, I’ll be right down!” Peter calls out. That warning buzz tugs at him more as his grogginess slips away. When he stands up, he has to fight against the sudden urge to skitter up the wall and hide in a ceiling corner.

Something has his senses going nuts.

Peter stops to consider this for a moment before heading for the shower.

Whatever it is, he’ll deal with it. For now, he has to at least pretend he’s human.