Dark Matter

"Lost my shield," Steve says idly.

"I wouldn't worry about that. It'll end up exactly where and when it needs to be," Constantine says.

* * *

His mind is a storm of green fury, blue calm, and golden whispers at the edge of his consciousness. The fury is winning out at the moment, burning away the numbing blue of Ebony Maw’s attempted mind control lurking in his mind. Peter launches himself off of the wall the moment Instant Kill engages, the blades of his spider suit flashing towards the alien at lightning speed.

Ebony Maw is a lot of things, but he isn’t a complete fool. The moment Peter leaps for him, he disappears behind a wall of debris, using the broken pieces of the spire as a smokescreen to put distance between him and his attacker. Peter rips through the wall of debris like paper, bursting through the other side, head snapping back and forth at unnatural angles, searching for Ebony Maw.

Gone. Peter's leap carries him to the other side of the spire, back within the shadows, golden legs flashing in the dark as he presses flat to the wall.

He’s thrumming with pent up energy, furious and terrified, with a thread of manic joy lighting up his veins, making his movements snap and twitch at a speed unnatural to regular humans. It takes effort to keep himself still, to search for his (prey) target--

There.

Above, hidden within the shadows of near the top of the spire. Ebony Maw is shrouded in darkness, standing utterly still, eyes searching for Peter. His arm is bleeding, and a second batarang is wedged deep into the armor in his back. The alien looks both annoyed and panicked. Distracted.

Perfect.

Peter prepares to leap for him when a panicked voice cries out, forcing him to pause.

“I need help!” Nightwing shouts from one of the platforms below. It’s followed by a shout of pain that’s quickly stifled by a near silent curse.

Nightwing is on one of the platforms of the shifting tower, staggering back from a pack of outriders that are circling him like rabid dogs. He’s holding his own against them--a miracle, given how strong the monsters are--but he’s bleeding from a few deep cuts along his back and shoulders that have shredded his suit’s armor. Lucky strikes from the swarm of outriders running circles around him. The pack constantly moves, making it harder for him to focus on taking down one of his opponents permanently, some leaping over him to prevent an escape by swinging away. The moment he tries, he has to abandon the effort to protect himself from a blindside blow.

And Corvus is strolling towards Nightwing, spear in hand, bored and at complete ease.

Peter hesitates, torn between a furious need to end Ebony Maw’s life and helping Nightwing. The urge to kill, to tear Ebony Maw apart wars against a larger need to protect one of the only people to show him an ounce of kindness in this dimension. The rage flares, adding to his frustration, making it hard to think, to act--

Ebony Maw makes the decision for him. He finally notices Peter and disappears in another flash. Peter growls, leaping down from the top of the spire to dive for Nightwing, fury and fear intermingling into a whirlwind of mindless action. Spikes and debris balls fly at him from the shadows; he swings, dives, and jumps past every last one, fury granting him a speed greater than his usual enhanced movements. The few spikes that he can’t get away from are swatted away with contemptuous efficiency by FRIDAY with the suit’s blades. That same efficiency extends to any outrider that drifts within range, though a few of them fall out of the sky without ever coming within range of Peter’s suit. It takes him a second to realize why.

He has a shadow. A bat is matching his movements, moving through the shadows of the spire, covering his back as he dives for Nightwing. It isn’t necessary, but it does save him from the occasional lucky strike or delay. This isn’t Batman; too sleek, too small. Batman is somewhere else above, fighting--someone. Something. It takes him a moment to recognize who it is: Black Bat. She slips in and out of the shadows, lit only by the occasional flash of lightning that reflects off of the eyes of her mask, keeping pace with him as he rips through the swarming outriders. Throwing sharpened batarangs into the few outriders that could pose a threat to him.

Peter simply accepts that he has a shadow.

He reaches Nightwing a few seconds later.

One moment there are a dozen outriders surrounding Nightwing. The next, there are a dozen headless outriders surrounding him. Peter crushes two with his fists as he swings past them. FRIDAY takes care of the rest, the golden blades flashing out to neatly remove the heads of the remaining outriders almost as quickly as Peter kills the first two. Nightwing is left standing in the center of a pile of headless bodies, wounded, and only barely aware of what’s happened by the time Peter reaches Corvus.

Peter snaps his body around, flipping himself around, heels slamming into Corvus hard enough to push the alien away from Nightwing. The alien is stronger than he expects; instead of flying across the room, he merely staggers back, dropping his spear. He recovers almost immediately, sneering at Peter before diving for his spear. Peter grapples with him, kicking the spear away. Peter braces himself, using his sticky powers to their full ability, and grips Corvus’ arms.

And rips them off.

Corvus screams, staggering back, staring in confusion and horror as Peter flings his arms over the side of the platform and grips stumps left behind with one hand. He readies another shot of web--

“Spider-Man--,” Nightwing says behind him, keeping his tone steady, even as it shakes from shock and blood loss. He’s holding his chest and moving carefully, as if he’s worried about moving too suddenly and further ripping open a wound. Or startling Peter.

Peter ignores him. He swings back into the air, dragging a screaming Corvus behind him as they close in on one of the fear toxin vats. He unceremoniously tosses the alien into the vat, swinging back into the shadows. Corvus sputters in panic, sinking like a stone to the bottom of the vat, leaving a trail of black blood behind that begins to grow. A dark, furiously giddy part of himself knows the alien will find it impossible to get out of that heavy armor without any arms. Behind him, he hears Nightwing curse.

Good. He hopes Corvus feels the same fear he did inside the Lazarus machine. He hopes he suffers.

And if he kills enough of the Black Order, Ebony Maw will come out of hiding.

That thought shakes something within him; the golden tether between himself and the Avengers vibrates, and his mind fills with shock, uneasiness, discontent, and concern. This is a side none of them have seen from him before.

“Peter, slow down. Go back to Nightwing and work together--,” Sam starts.

Peter ignores him, moving along the shadowed wall of the spire. The golden blades on his back flick the blood off of their tips, shifting out of his way whenever he stops to look for Ebony Maw. The storm outside is growing more violent, and the portal is starting grow. He can see flickers of golden lightning flash on the other side of it, pauses for a moment, and then resumes his hunt.

He stalks the shadows, ignoring Nightwing calling for him, the murmuring voices at the edge of his consciousness from the dusted Avengers, and constant thunder of the storm above the spire. The spire starts to shift, with platforms rising and reforming; Ebony Maw is changing the battlefield in light of Peter’s rage. Slowing him down by shifting the terrain of their battleground.

Red Hood swings past him, cursing, flinging a knife behind himself. Cull Obsidian leaps after him. Both are worse for wear; Cull Obsidian’s armor is scorched, and the skin of his face is burned and bleeding from whatever device or trick Red Hood had up his sleeve after being tackled. Red Hood himself is moving slower than before, just barely out of Cull’s reach. An outrider launches itself out of the shadows, swiping for the bat.

Red Hood reacts immediately, abandoning his grappling gun midswing to drop onto a platform below. He lands awkwardly at first, but twists into a roll back onto his feet, turning to face behind himself.

Cull lands on top of him, proving that move entirely useless. There’s another vicious curse from Red Hood, followed by the sound of desperate struggle, and the crack of a shattered helmet. For all of his tricks and strength, Red Hood is still human beneath the mask. If Cull Obsidian wasn’t so focused on toying with his opponent, the fight would already be over.

Peter, annoyed that his hunt for Ebony Maw is interrupted once more, swings up behind the outrider that distracted Red Hood and snaps its neck before dropping to the platform in utter silence.

By the time Peter hits the platform, half of Red Hood’s helmet is already gone, revealing another smaller mask underneath, and a streak of white hair tangled with darker strands. Cull Obsidian has Red Hood pinned to the ground, one massive fist raised to give a killing blow. Outriders circle the two, gnashing their teeth and growling, some drooling like starving dogs, as if they’re about to tear into a fresh meal. Peter keeps to the shadows, sprint-crawling over to the group.

The outriders sense him, turning and moving as one to try and swarm Peter. He sprints through them, knocking them over by sheer strength and speed and letting the blades in his suit do the rest. They flash forward and back, moving around him, striking the outriders dead with precise stabs through heads or chests before pulling back so Peter can run freely. He leaps forward, landing heavily on Cull Obsidian, hard enough to stagger the big alien and drive him back three or four steps from Red Hood. The move confuses him; Peter’s been striking with webs or his fists before now, and he’s just lost all of his momentum in a seemingly worthless leap.

Peter places his hand over Cull’s face, covering his eyes and nose, gripping onto the alien’s skin with his sticky powers as much as possible.

And pulls.

A sound like wet paper being ripped apart fills the spire, shortly followed by Cull’s painful, terrified screams. Peter tosses the upper half of Cull’s face to the ground. It lands near Red Hood’s feet with a wet splat. Red Hood’s whispered “Fuck!” is almost lost under the rise of noise from the ghosts in the soul stone.

“Why the hell did we think this was a good idea?” Bucky mutters.

“The alternative was letting Ebony Maw control him directly,” Hill replies. “Exactly how long do you think these people would last against him in a Stark suit?”

“This is getting out of hand,” Sam says.

“This is getting effective,” Loki retorts. “He should have done this from the start.”

Peter grabs the shrieking Cull, slinging the massive alien over one shoulder before leaping for another of the fear toxin vats. The wounded alien seems to sense Peter’s intentions and thrashes against Peter’s hold violently enough to shake himself free--

Only to fall down into the same seemingly endless pit as Tim. Peter lands on the wall of the spire, empty handed, and looks at the darkness below, his frustration briefly flaring at losing Cull Obsidian.

He hopes the alien dies terrified. The same way Tim--

Tim.

A wave of emotion hits him, overwhelming him, distracting him, muffling his heightened senses.

“I almost have it,” Mantis says. “But this is a bad thought to use--”

“We just need his mind to clear a bit,” Fury replies.

“We’re no better than the goddamn alien,” Bucky mutters in disgust.

The surface of the wall around Peter ripples like water, and dozens of clawed hands reach out and grab him. Even with his full strength, enhanced by the fury carrying him through the past few minutes, he can’t break free. He strains against the hands trapping him against the wall, but for every grip he breaks free of, three more latch on. His fury turns panicked and he snarls, tearing off the limbs that grab at him in unthinking rage. He’s making progress, slow as it is, if he keeps this up--

Ebony Maw drifts out of the swirl of brick and outrider limbs, floating in mid air. Peter lunges for him like a chained dog, and with about as much effect. Even the blades of his suit have been wrestled into place by the swarms of hands and claws, rendering them momentarily useless.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” Ebony Maw says.

Ebony Maw presses his hand to the side of Peter’s face unprotected by the helmet. The mind stone flashes, filling his vision, and that numbing blue begins to war with the rage within himself. It almost wins.

Just before it takes complete control, Peter’s fury is bolstered from within: cold rage from Bucky Barnes, and red fury from Wanda. They help push back, fueling Peter’s anger, and Ebony Maw rips his hand back with a snarl.

"So be it. I have other ways to make you useful," he snarls. Another flash of light, and this time it doesn’t try to worm its way into his mind. Instead, it plays over his eyes, visual noise that clouds his view like a wave, crossing over it without causing any obvious change.

A wave of dizzying nausea rolls over him.

Something flashes from the edge of Peter’s vision. A flicker of lightning from the tip of one of Nightwing’s escrima sticks is the only indication that Ebony Maw is under attack. It strikes him just above the eye, interrupting his spell. He draws back with a snake like hiss, and the nausea and clawed hands holding Peter captive disappear. The alien whirls around to face his new attacker, snarling--

Nightwing is on him an instant later, driving his knee into the alien’s midsection hard enough to send him flying across the spire. Nightwing follows him into the shadows, and the sound of a furious battle drifts out. Sparks from the taser tips of Nightwing’s escrima sticks flicker and die in the shadows, giving brief snapshots of a fight between Ebony Maw, a dozen Outriders Nightwing, and a much larger, darker form that falls into Nightwing’s battle rhythm easily. Nightwing is holding his own despite his wounds, but when he falters--a bare half second of hesitation--Batman steps in.

Peter needs to help. He pushes himself off of the wall, swinging towards Nightwing, Batman, and Ebony Maw. He feels off kilter and vaguely sick from the whirlwind of panic fueled rage, confusion, and the murmuring at the edges of his consciousness he’s doing his best to ignore. He’s twitchy and overstimulated. Mid swing, he falters, his vision going fuzzy at the edges. The battle inside the shadows changes; Nightwing’s form flickers in and out of sight, replaced by an Outrider that vaguely matches his shape with blue tinged armor. Batman’s form does the same. Ebony Maw must be using the stone to mess with his head, disguising the Outriders as the Bats to confuse him!

The false Nightwing is closer, and between Peter and Ebony Maw. Peter shifts his weight midswing, directing his suit to aim one of the golden blades towards the exposed back of the hero. The other Outrider, the false Batman, whips its head around when it sees Peter and lets out a sharp command that the fake Nightwing follows seemingly on instinct.

It won’t matter, Peter’s speed is unmatched, and further enhanced by the suit. FRIDAY will know exactly what to do--

The golden blade snaps out and shoves the false Nightwing away from Peter with the blunt side of its arm, moving him out of reach of Peter’s swing. The move is so sudden that it stalls Peter’s next move, stunning him as the false Nightwing flips into a clumsy fall that he recovers from in the blink of an eye. The suit is malfunctioning--

He never sees the false Batman coming; the Outrider drives a heel into Peter’s wrist, landing a stinging blow to the arm Peter’s using for his swing. It’s the only warning he gets before the web dissolves entirely, as if exposed to the special formula Peter created for just that purpose. His instincts should have caught it, but between the malfunctioning suit, the blurry confusion of Ebony’s trickery, and his own panic attack induced rage--

Peter curses viciously, recovering from his fall and swinging away. He’ll just have to try again--

“Instant Kill disengaged. You appear to be suffering from hallucinations,” FRIDAY reports. “Please stand down and await help--”

“Not now, FRIDAY,” Peter snarls, distracted once more. His senses ping against something in the shadows behind him, and he whirls around to face this new threat, shifting just in time to avoid a strike on his blind side.

The outrider is smaller, slimmer than the others, but it moves with a natural grace. It closes in with him fearlessly, raising a clawed hand with something small clutched oddly in its hand--

There’s a click-hiss sound. Suddenly, the exposed half of Peter’s face is drenched in a harsh chemical spray and he reacts on instinct, swiping at his eye and face as he lands a half panicked kick at the outrider’s midsection, sputtering and coughing.

The outrider lets out a very human sounding oof! and falls away from him, clutching its--his--ribs. Its skin--suit--is red, marked with a slanted R that pulls at his mind, distracting him from a follow up blow.

“Give him space!” the outrider says in Red Robin’s voice, his words coming out half breathless. He dodges Peter’s strike, taking advantage of the mix of blurred vision and confusion to put some distance between them. “It’ll take a thirty seconds before that clears the toxin out of his system!”

“A lot can happen in a fight in thirty seconds,” Bucky mutters darkly.

“Mantis--” Sam says.

“Back off,” Quill snaps. “She’s doing what she can!”

A flash of yellow at the edge of his vision is Peter’s only warning of another attack. His head is swimming, his face is stinging from whatever the Outrider had sprayed on him, with his blind side tingling and blurry from the liquid. The yellow outrider kicks Peter hard, pushing him away from the red one.

“Come on!” the yellow outrider says, gripping the red one’s arm. This one’s shape shifts harder than the others, as if there’s a false hologram over its form. “We’ll cover you, get away!”

Peter recovers from the kick in an instant, irritably swiping at his eye to clear it of the irritating tingle from whatever the false Red Robin sprayed into his face. The tingling sensation doesn’t leave. If anything, it seeps into his skin, his nose, burning his sinuses, and distracting him. To his fury, even his suit is fighting him, slowing him down or working against him as he swings for the false Signal. The power must be dropping.

“FRIDAY--” Peter snarls.

FRIDAY doesn’t answer.

Black gloves--claws--grip him from behind when he closes in on Signal again. He sputters, wrenching himself free of the grip, thrown off when they release him as quickly as they grabbed them. He whirls around in mid air. An outrider with a bat symbol is swinging behind him, matching his speed just enough to keep close. He clumsily swings for it, lost to his rage and a renewed sense of panic.

The monster matches him move for move, always ducking just out of his reach, as if it can read him by body language alone. It’s infuriating, and every missed strike pushes him deeper into that mindless fury--which makes it even easier for the monster to dodge him. He needs to stop, to think, but he can’t. He’s utterly lost to the rage.

It doesn’t help that the monster changes shape at odd moments. One moment it’s smaller, the hide shifting so that the wings look more like a cape, the face switching places with a mask similar to Black Bat’s, and the next it’s one of the more dangerous looking outriders. Whatever it’s doing to its shape has his suit confused; the blades twitch in place, reacting to Peter’s subconscious orders, but counteracting them almost as quickly. The suit is betraying him!

“Standown Protocol engaged. You are not thinking clearly,” FRIDAY reports. “Suit functions on partial lockdown.”

He hesitates for a moment after hearing that. A distant, less furious part of his mind is ringing alarm bells. None of his suits have locked down on him before.

And another much angrier part wants to know why that function is even in the suit in the first place--

His distraction lasts long enough to give the Black Bat outrider the chance she needs to close in on him, attacking him with clever strikes that keeps him off his balance, distracting him just enough that he forgets about the other outriders entirely. One moment she’s closing in on him for a sharp strike to his blindside, the next she’s out of his reach entirely. He pulls himself together enough to think.

Peter feints to the right. The Black Bat outrider shifts to counter him, and he jumps back, using his enhanced speed to snap his left wrist up and fire a glob of webbing at her face mask. The webbing splotches across the front of the mask, forcing a startled mmph! out of the outrider and forcing her to try and retreat. She’s wide open for an attack now--

There’s a blinding flash to his left, followed by crackling thunder that startles Peter out of his attack, blinding and annoying him, causing a furious swell of frustration that makes his strike clumsy and uneven.

“Hey, asshole! Over here!” another outrider shouts.

Peter whirls around to face this new threat just in time for another mini flashbang to pop off in his face. The half of his face covered by what’s left of his helmet compensates for the sight and sound, but half blind and deaf in a fight is still debilitating. Even for him. Another swell of rage, sends Peter after this new target, leaping, sprint-crawling, and shooting webs at a target that manages to melt in and out of the shadows of the shifting spire as if one with them. It’s bigger than the others, mimicking Red Hood’s suit and form.

The Outrider pretending to be Red Hood seems to know just how to piss him off more. He keeps his distance, ducking in and out of view, tossing smoke bombs, small flashbangs, even the leftover detritus from the spire’s former life as a series of warehouses in Crime Alley. For all that, Peter is closing in fast. He’s going to run out of tricks soon enough.

The outrider with the red mask suddenly lifts up a piece of metal--

A shield--

“There,” Bucky says, voice suddenly eager and sharp. “That might help.”

It won’t stop Peter. He can rip metal apart with his bare hands. Peter slams his fist into the face of the shield, putting all of his strength behind it--

He’s knocked back with such force and strength that he can’t recover safely. He slams into the ground, head first, drawing a deep groove through the thick metal platform with his helmet. It sends stars into his vision and interrupts the furious panicked haze fueling his rampage, replacing it with confusion and pain, even if only for a moment.

“I’ve got it!” Mantis says.

The fury is still there, still thrumming just beneath his skin, but the confusion is stronger. He staggers up, suddenly aware of how sore he is and wondering at the blood covering his hands and suit. He leaps up into the air, intending to get somewhere high to give himself a moment to think. He glances up just in time to see Red Hood haul back and fling something at his head with all of his strength.

Peter had told Damian he’ll catch anything anyone throws at him. He twists in mid air, snatching the shield out of the air--

Wait. Shield?

A memory cuts through the rage, a half serious fight between himself and Captain America--who really was holding back during that fight, he’s able to admit that now--back in Germany--

He’s holding the shield. Cap’s shield is on his arm, battle scuffed, sporting a brand new dent in the center of it, but whole. Peter drops back down onto the platform near the crates Red Hood is hidden behind, landing lightly, the momentum formed by his rage draining away. He stares at the shield on his arm, confusion and hope pushing back against the green rage. The longer he stares, the easier it becomes, as if someone has seized on the memory of the shield to push back the unthinking fury. It’s a slow, difficult process--

“Just focus on the shield,” Sam says.

Red Hood ducks out of the shadows and tackles him, seizing him in a brutal chokehold. FRIDAY lights up, jabbing at Red Hood ineffectually with the stumps of the golden legs from his suit. His suit isn’t like Tony’s; it can’t shift and reform with a quick thought. Without the armor around his face and neck, Peter is vulnerable to Red Hood’s surprisingly effective chokehold.

“Even tough guys like you still need to breathe,” he growls. “If you don’t snap out of it, I’m going to have do something drastic--”

Peter tries to stick himself to the ground so he can gain leverage and throw Red Hood off of himself. It doesn’t work; Red Hood might not leap into most fights with a plan, but that doesn’t mean he can’t adapt to an opponent’s style. He wrenches Peter back and forth, not letting him gain an inch, and Peter is reluctant to go all out on an ally, even if that ally is currently being an absolute dick and threatening his temper again.

“He’s back!” Sam snaps.

Red Hood startles, his hold loosening from Peter’s neck. “What--”

“Where did you get this?” Peter asks, his voice dreamy. His head is positively ringing, and the rage and panic have given away to an almost complete exhaustion.

Red Hood keeps a wary distance, looking around for the source of the voice he just heard but keeping at least on eye on Peter as he does so. “Some asshole threw it at me. Looked like he was in a tree.”

“A tree?” Peter asks. He feels Loki’s interest sharpen, and does his best to ignore it. It feels like having a snake peer over his shoulder, and he’s rapidly getting tired of hearing a crowd at the edge of his consciousness.

“Yes, a tree,” Red Hood snaps, keeping a wary distance from Peter. “Not important. Are you still crazy?”

“Not anymore than usual,” Peter mutters, slinging the shield over one arm. It’s awkward; the shield was designed for someone a foot taller and much broader than Peter, but it’s light enough that he can handle it.

The other Bats drift in, some staying high, others landing nearby. Peter doesn’t miss the green flash of stone in hidden in Batman’s hand, nor the fact that Black Bat sticks to his blind side, a small grenade in hand. He doesn’t entirely blame them.

He is surprised, however, when Nightwing drops down beside him and approaches him seemingly without any fear. He lands heavily, bracing himself against a pile of debris. His suit is torn and bloody, and he moves with a slight limp, fighting through the injuries Ebony Maw’s outriders gave him just to stay on his feet. Taking a closer look, Peter can tell most of the Bats are hurt, but powering through their injuries.

He’s more than a little horrified to realize some of those came from him.

“Focus, Parker,” Fury says. Red Hood snaps his head towards the sound of the voice, visibly confused.

Red Hood startles. “Who said--”

“Are you alright?” Nightwing asks Peter, ignoring Red Hood entirely.

“Good enough,” Peter says, rubbing the back of his neck. He sees Nightwing eye the spider legs sticking out of his suit and twitches his hand, making the bladed legs retract back inside. “For now, anyway. Don’t let that guy get near you, he has the Mind Stone.”

“We noticed,” Red Robin mutters.

“Where’d he go?” Peter asks, trying to put distance between himself and the furious panic still thrumming under his skin. His voice shakes, coming out as a half snarl. “If he’s not here--”

“Up there, while we were busy dealing with you.” Red Hood points above them, towards the portal above the spiral. They’ve been rising to the top of the spire for the entire fight, and now they’ve reached the roof, just beneath the hole Felicia used to escape earlier. “He took the rest of his bat monsters with him. You were a great distraction for the rest of us.”

Peter pauses, glancing up at the portal again. It’s growing larger. The lightning inside is wholly unnatural; at least, he’s never seen lightning shift from silver to gold like that in real life. He can sense others on the roof of the spire, and hear a machine begin to reach a near fever pitch, as if reaching a crescendo.

If the portal gets much bigger, one of the flying worms from the Battle of New York could fly through. The thought of that chills him, even in the dying heat of his panicked rage. The Avengers had the Hulk and Iron Man to deal with those things. The Bats could probably take out one or two of them if necessary, but it would lead to a lot of death and destruction, and there’s no promises the Bats would survive. They don’t have a lot of time.

Peter knows what they need to do. He turns to the Bats. “There’s a machine on the roof, right? Something they’re using to hold that portal open.”

“There is,” Batman says.

“We need to destroy it. No matter what, it has to go. They’ve got monsters on the other side you’ve never seen before and there’s no way we can beat them.”

“How?” Batman asks.

“Destroying the power source. They needed a power supply to boost the space stone fragment. Back home, they used Tony’s arc reactor,” Peter says, pulling together his drifting thoughts and half remembered conversations with Tony over the Battle of New York. A realization dawns on him. “Arc Reactor tech doesn’t exist here, so they probably tried to use my suit but FRIDAY kept playing dead. So they found other sources--"

"The blackouts all over the city," Nightwing says. "The attack on the power plant--"

"The kryptonite being smuggled into Gotham," Red Robin adds. “If you channel power through it the right way, it works as an energy source. A very dangerous, very unstable energy source that’ll burn itself out over any period of time lasting longer than a few hours, but if you’re not planning on keeping it running for long, that isn’t a concern.”

“And if you don’t mind blowing up a city in the aftermath if it does fail,” Nightwing says grimly. He blinks, glancing around. “Where’s Robin?”

“On the roof with Catwoman and Black Cat,” Batman replies, already preparing to launch himself up to the roof. The other Bats follow his lead, and Peter does the same. Batman glances at Nightwing, staring at the blood on his suit. Some kind of silent communication passes between them, and Nightwing visibly bristles.

“I’m fine,” Nightwing snaps back. “Let’s end this.”

The roof of the spire is chaos. Sounds of combat surround the group as they land on the slanted roof; Robin and Spoiler playing a game of cat and mouse with Bane, Felicia and Catwoman backing them up with hit and run tactics that distracts the larger man from landing a blow on the bats. Electrocutioner is unconscious, tied to an errant flagpole sticking out of the roof of the spire, beside a half dozen equally unconscious Outriders. Clayface stands at the edge of the fight, staring at his own hands in visible confusion, not quite a threat, but clearly not an ally either.

Wind, thunder, and swirling clouds surrounding a hole in the sky whose edges gleam with eerie blue light. The gold and silver lightning from before is gone, replaced by a wholly unnatural eldritch green beam from a machine at the top of the spire that connects to the portal. Four massive chunks of green crystal rattle against their steel bindings at the base of the machine, sparks of blinding green-yellow popping off of them at random spots. In the middle of the four is a focusing lens creating the beam.

And above the lens is Ebony Maw. He shoves his hand into the beam with a hissing snarl. A streak of blue-white light overtakes the beam, and Ebony Maw’s hand shakes from the pressure and pain.

“Kill them! Keep them away from the machine!” he snarls. There’s a thread of desperation in his voice, and the beam shifts colors, trying to match the blood red gleam from the portal. The color shifts wildly, switching from one to the next.

He can’t complete the circuit without Signal’s help or the Soul Stone, Peter thinks. He turns to the Bats.

“Cover me while I take out the machine. He’s going to throw everything he has at me to keep that portal open,” he says.

“We’ve got you, Spider-Man,” Nightwing replies, speaking for the Bats as a whole. “Be careful of those green crystals, all right?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Peter says.

He turns to sprint for the machine and is surprised to find Felicia beside him, exhausted and frightened, but otherwise unhurt.

“You made it!” she says, her expression equal parts shock and relief. She starts to say something and pauses, her eyes fixating on the shield on his arm. “Is that--”

“Not now,” he says. He points up to the portal. “That portal leads back to our universe, where all of this is coming from. I’m going to shut it down. Stay back and help the Bats cover me.”

At that, Felicia goes quiet, giving the portal a thoughtful look. Peter looks over the strange machine, crawling alongside the wall to get a better look while the Bats buy him time to figure out how to stop the portal. Half a dozen car-sized chunks of green crystal are strapped to a hodgepodge of electronics, clanking machines, and much more sophisticated technology, all three melded together in an uneven mess. A sharp spire rises from the top of it, aimed firmly at the portal, flickering with green lighting that runs the length of it.

The crystals have to go. Rip out the power source, and--

And probably zap himself in the process. The memory of his attempt to rip out a much smaller version of those rocks inside the tower is still fresh in his mind. He’s not sure he can withstand getting close to those things, and he’s not willing to risk repeating his little trick from before. If what Red Robin said is true (and it probably is), then those rocks are unstable at best when under this amount of strain. Throwing something at that machine will make them go critical and explode.

Which, Peter realizes with a sinking feeling, is still preferable to letting Thanos and his army invade this universe. He doesn’t want to die, but--

A memory, one from Fury, in Hawkeye’s voice, sounds off inside his mind, shoving aside those thoughts with all the subtlety of a flaming truck:

"That cube's a door that opens to the other side of space, right? Doors open from both sides."

The space stone in Ebony Maw’s hand. If he can get close enough to it, he might be able to steal it, or interrupt whatever the alien is doing, at least. That might be enough to destabilize the portal

“Help the Bats, I’m going to end this,” Peter tells her. He sprints away from her the moment he ends his sentence, barely hearing her ‘wait, we can use th-’ when he moves. His focus is on Ebony Maw and the machine.

Nightwing keeps up with him, which is a shock. The man is obviously hurt, but pushing through the pain regardless, determined to keep pace with Peter through sheer will and stubbornness. He glances over at him.

“Give me an opening,” Peter says, tossing him Cap’s shield. “And cover me if you can!”

Nightwing gives him the barest nod of acknowledgement. He lets out a low whistle that rises sharply. The other Bats fall in around them, Red Hood and Red Robin taking the lead despite their own obvious injuries. They work well together, distracting the wave of outriders so that Black Bat and Robin can close in and overwhelm them. The Bats aren’t stronger than Peter, but they’re clever, and deadly when working as a group without distractions. Peter and Nightwing sprint through the fray easily, with Nightwing using the shield to knock back the few Outriders that manage to get close to them.

A flash of gold and black passes above them, followed by three expertly thrown golden batarangs. All three hit their marks; one in Ebony Maw’s shoulder, throwing his arm out of alignment with the machine, a second expertly placed in the heart of the machine, shorting out some cobbled together piece of blackened steel with a crackling snap. The third slashes across Ebony Maw’s eyes, causing the alien to hiss and cover his eyes with his free arm.

“That’s for being weird about my eyes, asshole!” Signal shouts, swinging past them.

“We need to work on your quips,” Red Hood shouts after him. Signal answers him with a middle finger before jumping into help him and Red Robin with the Outriders.

That’s his opening. Peter sprints towards the machine and jumps. When he closes in on Ebony Maw this time, it’s with full intent to kill. The unthinking rage has drained away, leaving behind a steely resolve and cold determination. And beneath that, a bone deep exhaustion he can’t afford to give attention to. One that’s subtly enhanced by his proximity to the green crystals. He ignores that, too.

He lands on the machine opposite of Ebony Maw and almost immediately regrets it. The green crystal. It’s unbearable. Peter shrinks back from it, actually flinches away from it, raising one hand to shield himself.

“What is this stuff?” he hisses.

Ebony Maw, blood pouring down his face, laughs. “Thanos was right.”

“What are you talking about?” Peter asks. He hadn’t meant to speak earlier; he’d wanted to jump in, disable the machine or Ebony Maw--preferably both--and then get the hell away, but the wave of nausea and pain from being so close to the crystals is a shock every time. It’s a pain he can’t push through without severe effort.

“He used the Infinity stones to give him visions of the future. He told me that I would need kryptonite to defend his great plan from one who is of Earth but not human. I had thought he meant one of the guardians of this world, but no. No, it’s you. One of Earth who isn’t human, from another world. It weakens you.” His glee is all but palpable. "It's barely useful as fuel. If I had known, I would have used it to poison the water supply--"

“This won’t stop me,” Peter grits out. He reaches in and grabs one of the power cables deep within the machine. His body is wracked with nausea, and his equilibrium is thrown for a moment, causing him to pitch backward before he can snap back into place. Worse still, his suit jitters in place, the vision over the intact side of his helmet going fuzzy and glitching.

“Won’t it?” Ebony Maw purrs, pulling his free arm back away from his ruined eyes to reach for something out of Peter’s view.

Peter shoots him a venomous look. He realizes that the kryptonite it isn’t weakening him; it’s depowering him. His eyesight worsens in seconds, and the suit around himself feels five times as heavy. His lungs wheeze.

“Peter, your vitals have dropped. Are you well?” FRIDAY asks. Her voice stutters, repeating syllables, and he knows he can’t rely on the suit to help him with this.

Fortunately, he’s spent his entire time in Gotham being sick and weak and frankly not at his best. He knows how to handle this. He marshals his strength, and shoves both hands into the heart of the machine, reaching for Ebony Maw’s hand hovering over the central piece of kryptonite despite the pain. His strength is faltering, but he can power through it long enough to do this.

The alien, blinded by Signal, grows panicked.

“You don’t have to do this!” Ebony Maw hisses. “You can go home!”

Peter ignores him.

“Iron Man is dying.”

Peter pauses, momentarily confused. “What?”

“Stark. The Iron Man.”

“Dr. Strange said--” Peter starts, reaching for the alien’s hand. Even a shift by centimeters is torture to work through, and the bastard is shifting his hand around just enough to move out of Peter’s reach.

“Oh, he didn’t die in my lord’s desecration, that’s true,” Ebony Maw continues smoothly. He waves a hand, and portion of the portal above splits off to form a much smaller portal near them.

It’s Tony, starved to nothing, eyes closed, slumped against the window of a spaceship. He has bandages around his stomach, stained brown with old blood. He’s pale, weak, and clearly close to death.

“He escaped Titan, but now he languishes, mortally wounded, thousands of light years away from your planet. The rest of your companions, your Avengers, think him dead already. They will not save him. They are as good as dead themselves.”

Peter freezes, staring at the image.

“Destroy this machine, and you doom him to a slow and painful death in the void between stars. How much longer do you think he will last in that state? He’s not like you. He’s only human.”

Peter clenches his fists, looking at his feet. His mind is a whirlwind. There are voices at the edge of his consciousness that he can’t hear, trying to distract him. He pushes them away.

“This world isn’t yours. You survived the cleansing. You survived the war. Is that not enough? There's no need for you to fight a second war, child." Ebony Maw's voice is silky smooth "Go home. Rescue Iron Man. You’re already familiar with our technology. All it would take is one simple press of a button.”

Peter pulls his hands back from the central piece of kryptonite, giving himself time to breathe, to think. He sees Ebony Maw grin in his peripheral vision.

If he does this, he’s here forever.

He can hear three voices in his head.

“With great power, there must also come great responsibility.” Aunt May.

"Smart money is knowing which doors to open and keep closed." Tony.

And finally:

“No great thing can be done without sacrifice.” Dr. Strange.

“You already lost once, you don’t need to suffer a second time,” Ebony Maw says again.

Peter makes his decision.

“You’re right,” he says, his voice calm and steady. “I can’t save my world. But I can avenge it.”

He shoves both arms deep into the machine, grabs Ebony Maw’s hand, and slams it on top of the tip of the kryptonite, cracking it in half and overloading the space stone in his hand. Peter feels the soul stone within him shelter and protect him from dying outright to the sudden burst of energy. The power surge forces Peter’s suit to flake away along his hands and forearms, the metal unable to withstand the energy surge. The kryptonite burns hot against his skin, tingling like acid and fire, scorching his hands hot enough to send tendrils of smoke up into the air. He curses his brief moment of Pit Madness. If he hadn’t succumbed to that little temper tantrum, he’d be stronger now where it counts most. This would be an utter cakewalk. As it is, the stone and suit are protecting him enough to let him maintain enough of his powers and super strength to do what he needs to do. He pushes through the pain, grips Ebony Maw’s hand, braces himself and squeezes again, slamming it against another of the central pillars of kryptonite. He feels the alien’s hand shatter inside his grip.

The kryptonite rock shatters. The energy it was channeling runs straight into Peter and the Iron Spider. FRIDAY deploys the golden spider legs again, managing to force most of the energy into the suit’s various batteries and then out of the metal spider legs protruding from Peter’s back. Green lightning crawls across the surface of the suit and out through the spider legs, making it look as though Peter is standing in the center of a green storm.

The suit stiffens and becomes sluggish and there’s a distinct smell of scorched electronics in the air. He drops Ebony Maw’s ruined hand, clenches his fists and drives both of them into the heart of the machine, grabbing everything inside he can and yanking it free. Power surges flash up, blinding him, burning his exposed skin, and he bites back a scream as the power inside flows through his veins, dropping to his knees. He trembles, clutching the edge of the now ruined machine.

Ebony Maw’s eyeless face stares at him, furious and shocked, the space stone and mind stone slivers in his hand flashing in time with the dying machine. “You idiot child--”

“If I take that portal back home, I betray everything I stand for and everything he ever taught me,” Peter grits out. His hands are ruined; scorched, and burning from touching the crystal. He flails at what’s left of a control panel, and slams his fist through it. It’s a weak move compared to his earlier attacks, and he desperately hopes Ebony Maw doesn’t realize just how weak he is at the moment.

“This changes nothing. You killed him to give yourself momentary peace, nothing more,” Ebony Maw hisses. He’s glancing up at the portal, as if seeking it out. He has to; Signal took his eyes. The stones in his hand flare like dying flames, Peter wonders how weak he is. “You’ll realize your mistake soon enough.”

“I’m not listening to you--”

“You have a portion of one of the fundamental forces in the universe. Each stone controls one of them,” Ebony Maw says, pressing on. “What do you think a soul stone controls? Do you think you’ve won their friendship and alliance by pure chance? The stone is a part of you now. Every word, every thought, every action is influenced by it.”

Peter freezes. That can’t be true. Can it?

The portal is collapsing. Ebony Maw can sense it, even without his vision. He gives Peter one last hateful look before clenching his fist over the sliver of space stone in his ruined hand and disappearing in a flash of green blue-white light that disappears inside the portal. It snaps shut moments later, with the storm slowly falling into unnatural silence, the thunder and wind dying suddenly.

Peter curls up, presses his forehead against the smooth, black metal of the machine, and fights back the urge to vomit. His hands, scorched and smoking from crushing the kryptonite, rest beside his head.

The enormity of what he’s done hits him like a train. He’ll never go home again. No more Queens, no more Avengers, no more visiting his parents’ graves. His friends and family are gone for good. He just traded Tony’s life and everything he’s ever known for half of the lives of this universe, to protect them from a threat none of them are even aware of, and trapped himself in an entirely different dimension.

It was the right choice.

It was the only choice.

For one grief stricken moment, he thinks that if he could go back and change it, he would.

The voice-thoughts--the soul stone--stirs inside him, and he can hear murmuring, chattering, half formed words of horror, of comfort, of despair. He shoves them away with a vicious thought.

Leave me alone! I never wanted this!

The voices fall silent.

Some time later, the sound of battle eases. The fighting has stopped. He hears several pairs of feet land near him, around him. A gentle hand grips his shoulder, tugging him up.

"Come on," Nightwing says softly. "We've got to fix up your hands. Can you stand?"

Can he? "I-I don't think--"

"Get his other side, we have to get him away from the kryptonite," Red Hood orders. A moment later, the two men lift him up easily and set him on his own two feet.

He sways, catches his balance, and nearly pitches over. Red Hood and Nightwing steady him, each pulling one of his arms across their shoulders.

"Is it irradiated?” Peter asks, frowning “Should you guys even be near me--"

"It isn't dangerous for us. Focus on yourself for once," Red Robin cuts in, pulling out a small first aid kit from one of the pouches on his suit. "Here. I’m going to give you something for the pain--"

"Where's Batman?" Red Hood asks.

"Arranging for transport back to the cave," Signal answers quietly, out of breath and swaying on his feet. “And making sure the coast is clear. He’s bringing in the jet.”

Through the grief and pain, a thought occurs to Peter. He stumbles to a stop, forcing Red Hood and Nightwing to come to a halt beside him and ducking out of reach of Red Robin’s hand. "Tim was here. We can’t leave him--”

“He’s fine,” Red Hood says shortly. “We need to go.”

“Not until I see that he’s safe!” Peter says.

“He’s okay,” Red Robin says quietly.

“How do you know?”

“Signal caught him,” Red Robin replies, his voice steady, even, matter of fact. “He left for the manor. I’ll bring you to him the moment we get you patched up. Okay?”

Peter almost argues against it, but the exhaustion pulls at him. He meets Red Robin’s eyes. “Send me proof.”

“Okay,” Red Robin says easily. “Once we’re back at the cave.”

That’s as good as it’s going to get for him, probably.

Nightwing gently nudges him, exhaustion threading through his own voice. “Come on, let’s get you home, Peter.”

“Don’t think that’s possible anymore,” Peter mutters.

“You’d be surprised.”

The jet arrives. A sleek, black jet that matches the night sky and hovers like one of the quinjets the Avengers used in New York City. The bat theme is apparent, and in any other context, he’d have at least one snarky observation about that, but he’s too overwhelmed. By the fight, by what he’s done, by the revelation that he's just ruined his only chance of going home.

He did it. He stopped the invasion. It’s a clear victory, and one that’s protected this universe from the horrors of his home that’s now forever lost to him.

He doesn’t feel like he’s won anything.

Ebony Maw’s words burn inside his mind, now much more silent after he’s shoved the Avengers away from his consciousness.

He lets Nightwing and Red Hood carry him to the jet, and stays silent the entire ride towards Batman’s cave.