Cthulhu
Locating all of the Avengers without Friday’s help proved to be more time consuming than Peter wanted it to be, but he managed. Getting them all to keep on the stupid time medallions was a challenge as well, but as always, Peter persevered. They were all suited up, on the roof of the building Peter had been on before. They’d barely all landed there, the non fliers carried by the fliers, when a portal opened and Phantom flew back out, followed closely by Ellie and Scarlett.
“Weapons,” he announced, pulling a duffle bag off his shoulder. He started pulling things out, and Peter realized it must be magical somehow, because there was no way all of that could fit in that bag.
“Bow and arrows,” he started, tossing it to Clint, who caught the obviously very high tech bow with a grin. “Dual pistols.” Those went to Natasha. “Repulsor modifiers.” To Tony. “Ectoplasmic web fluid.”
Peter caught the canister, startled. “How’d you make web fluid?” he asked, incorporating the new weapon into his suit.
“Reverse engineered it,” Phantom answered, nonchalantly, and kept handing out weapons.
Peter had stopped listening to the roll call, instead testing the glowing green webs. He must have gotten a little close to Phantom, because he yelled “Hey! Watch where you’re pointing those things!”
He stopped experimenting. Everyone seemed to be decked out with weapons by that point, so Peter tuned back in.
“That,” Phantom said, jabbing a thumb at Cthulhu, “is a Deeps Monster. It’s complicated. For now, we’re just gonna call it Cthulhu. Beating it is sort of like a boss in a final battle in a video game. Just keep hitting it until it gets weak enough for Scarlett, Ellie, and I to freeze it and force it back into the Realms. When that happens, you’ll know. And I may or may not end up freezing time again, so keep those amulets on you, alright?”
There was a round of assent from the gathered heroes.
“Hit fast, hit hard, and fliers, don’t let it knock you out of the sky. If you do you’re dead meat. I’d say those of you on the ground should work on evacuation, but I’m not in charge of you, so do whatever you want. Easy enough?”
“Sure.”
“Great. Time doesn’t restart slowly, it’s all at once, so prepare yourselves for chaos. Ready?”
Everyone nodded. And the chaos began.
Danny wasn’t used to this many humans with ghost weapons being around him. They were all excellent shots, of course. And they were doing well. It was just nerve racking. Because nothing could ever be easy. He was focusing on doing exactly what he told the Avengers to do: just keep hitting. Ellie and Scarlett were doing the same, alternating between ectoblasts and other attacks. It was going...okay, he supposed. Well, ok, maybe not quite okay.
Someone was falling. Way too quickly. A flash of red and blue-
Danny had teleported below and caught him before he had time to consider doing anything else. The impact knocked the breath out of him, but he didn’t actually need to breathe in ghost form, so it was alright. Iron Man had been rushing to catch Spidey as well, but stopped when Danny gave him a thumbs up. Reluctantly, the man returned to the battle at hand.
The rooftop seemed like the best place, so Danny set Spidey down on his back carefully. He tapped his cheek, which felt burning hot on his icy skin.
“Spidey, come on, you gotta wake up. Spidey!” Danny exclaimed, shaking him.
He gasped and sat up, arms flailing wildly. Danny caught his wrists.
“Hey, you’re okay, you’re okay, I’m not going to hurt you. We’re on the same side, you’re alright,” he comforted, even as Spidey strained against his hold.
All at once, the other boy relaxed and slumped, breathing heavily.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Hey, it’s alright, you took a pretty hard hit. Take a breath, okay? I’ve gotta get back in there.”
“Wait!”
Danny paused, turned back to him.
“Are you okay?” Spidey asked, his voice soft.
Oh. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m a lot more durable than you. Just take a breather, alright? The rest of us’ll be alright.”
Spidey nodded. “Alright. Alright.”
Danny waved a salute and flew off. The Deep Monster was changing colors, from the purple that the humans could see to a deeper, more painful color that only ghosts could see. It was time. He tugged on his core, let the cold and the ice flood to the surface and frost his fingertips. Then he started to work on Cthulhu. In the corner of his eye, he could see Ellie and Scarlett doing the same.
Peter wasn’t used to actually feeling blows enough to be benched. Right now, he totally was. His chest hurt like hell, every time he took a deep breath it felt like he was stabbed by a thousand knives. He coughed on something wet and realized it was his own blood. Not good, not good, not good. The battle was winding down, he could tell. The ghosts had the creature covered in ice and there was something like a portal swirling around it. In a moment, Cthulhu seemed to be sucked in on itself and then vanished.
“Tasha,” Peter slurred over the comms. “I don’t feel so good.”
Natasha swore. In a moment, she was somehow kneeling by his side, Phantom hovering anxiously behind her. Tony landed and stepped out of his suit, rushing over to land on his knees at Peter’s side. Natasha had a hand on his back, supporting him as he fell into another coughing fit. They were all talking, but Peter couldn’t focus enough to actually hear them. Then there were ice cold hands on his chest, and everything snapped into clarity.
“Spidey,” Phantom, the one with his hands on Peter’s chest, said urgently. “I need you to tell me where it hurts.”
“Chest, hard to breathe,” Peter gasped.
“Alright, I’m going to fix it. Try to relax. This may feel strange,” Phantom told him, voice icy calm.
It did feel strange. It was freezing cold and inexplicably burning at the same time. It was agony, and yet there was no pain. He gasped, a small, frightened noise. And then, in an instant, it was over. He could breathe again.
“What...how…?” he asked, looking around imploringly at all the faces.
Phantom had stood and started pacing, muttering to himself in a language Peter had never heard. Natasha and Tony looked just as bewildered as Peter felt.
“Phantom?” Peter asked, quietly.
Phantom kept pacing and muttering for a moment, then, finally, he turned to face Peter. He asked something in the same language Peter didn’t understand.
“What?”
Phantom cleared his throat. “Sorry. I switch languages when I’m trying to think things through,” he apologized.
“How did you fix my injuries?” Peter asked.
“Time patch. I literally took the part of your body that was injured and forced it back in time to a time when it wasn’t injured,” Phantom explained, then he went back to pacing, waving his hands as he spoke. “It’s not as stable as it should be, though. I think it’s because of your latent temporal abilities, which I still have no idea how you have. If you let me take you to my lair I can stabilize it. If I don't, the worst case scenario is just that the patch will wear off and you’ll need a hospital real fast to keep you from, y’know, choking to death on your own blood.”
“You can fix it, though?” Peter asked, not wanting to go through the whole choking on his own blood thing again if he could avoid it.
Phantom stopped, turned to him, nodded firmly. “I can. I have temporal equipment in my lair that can force it to stabilize. I’ve had to do similar things for Danny, since he’s liminal.”
“You’ve done this before?” Natasha asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re good at it?” Tony asked.
“Very.”
“Kid?” Tony asked, eyes full of concern.
“I’ll go,” Peter asserted. He stood, Natasha and Tony hovering.
“Great. You want them to come?” Phantom asked, nodding at Tony and Natasha.
“Yeah,” Peter admitted, and the adults behind him relaxed.
“Alright,” Phantom said, then he held his hand out and a portal opened into what looked like, well, like a ghost lab.
Phantom drifted back and waved a hand. “Humans first.”
So Peter, Natasha, and Tony walked through the portal with Phantom close behind.