Crimson Webs
For years Peter had been feeling terribly, like he was constantly hungry and he had no idea why. His aunt and uncle always had food on the table even if it meant that they had to work extra shifts. He knew a lot of kids at school that were food insecure so the reasons for him being hungry just did not click. After asking his aunt about it, she proceeded to tell him that he had a really strong soul bond connection. Not much research was done into figuring out what soul bonds did and how they formed but it was known that some people just had stronger soul bonds than others. It was believed that these people had better connections to their soulmates than the rest of the population and the few that had them were considered very lucky.
As the years past, his bond only strengthened. Almost to the point of empathic abilities. He could feel strong emotions from his soulmate but not for very long. Once Peter turned 10 he started to notice the amount of physical abuse his soulmate would take and the subsequent terror and sadness it caused. He would get scraped knees, random bruises along his arms and legs, and once thought he broke a bone. Thinking that his soulmate’s life was very rough, he would hope he would be able to meet them soon and try to make their life better.
By the time Peter turned 16, he finally developed his words “wхо аре ыоу?” Written across his right arm, he had no idea what the words meant or why they were not in English but he dedicated his next 2 months to figuring out the language the words were from. Well, 2 months before a certain field trip to a certain science facility where he would get a certain spider bite. After the spider bite, he spent all of his free time figuring out his new abilities as Spider-Man. This is where this story picks up:
May 16, 2017:
Peter wakes up to his alarm before his last day of school. Even though it was a wednesday, he had already taken all of his finals ahead of time and was just taking his college biology course’s final that day. After that, he was free from his sophomore year of high school and free to swing around New York as Spider-Man. In the first month of being a superhero, Peter fell in love with his new job. He still did not love keeping it a secret from his aunt and uncle but he knew it was for the best. He didn’t want them to get involved and put them in danger.
As he got out of his bed, he noticed he was unusually happy. His soulmate seemed to be in a rough spot so days like this where they were happy did not come often. Maybe it was their birthday, who knew. He was still frustrated that he didn’t know what the words on his arm were but, given that summer was only a few hours away, he was going to dedicate more time to figuring out the puzzle on his arm.
His aunt made him breakfast and threw a banana at him before he walked to catch the subway to school. He felt a weird buzzing in the back of his head on the ride there and dismissed it as nerves. He arrived to his testing room with 1 minute to spare, sat down and prepared himself for the test. 2 hours later he was released and he knew he aced the test but still had the buzzing in the back of his head. After he walked out of the school, the buzzing intensified before it became a blaring noise telling him to move. He stepped back just as a black car was about to hit him. He stared at the car in astonishment as the driver gets out and come up to him.
“Are you Peter Benjamin Parker?” the driver asks. Peter nods, still stuck in place from his bewilderment, “I need you to come with me, it is important and I will explain to you when we are in the car.” Peter knew that this man was a stranger, his mind said it was a terrible idea to go with the driver, however, his gut said to go. So he walked into the car as the woman opened the door for him and went to get back in the driver's seat. “Hello Peter, sorry to have to get you on such short notice but my name is Riri Williams and I am an employee of Stark Enterprises. Mr. Stark said he needed to speak with you on a very important matter.”
Peter laughed at her, thinking she was joking but when she looked back in the rear view mirror at him, he knew it was not a joke. His mind started racing at 100 miles an hour as he asked, “Why does he need to talk to me? I’m no one, just a 16 year old high school kid.”
“I don’t know Mr. Parker, all I know is that he said to come pick you up at this time outside of your school. I’m sure you will learn the rest when we get to Stark Tower.” she replied and then rolled up the window between the driver and the passenger. Peter sat there confused and lost track of time as they pulled up to the building. Riri sent him up the elevator to the penthouse and told him that Ms. Potts will be informing him where to go after that.
Peter stepped out of the elevator in the penthouse apartment and was instantly met by Pepper Potts. She told him that Tony was waiting for him at the helipad and instructed Peter to where that was. Peter, still confused on what on earth was happening just followed her to the spot and saw Mr. Stark waiting there for him. Not needing an introduction he said, “Nice to meet you Peter, please come inside quickly. We have a long travel time and I will inform you on the way there. There is a suit waiting for you when you sit down and I will introduce you to the rest of the team.”
It finally clicked for Peter why Mr. Stark needed him. It was an Avenger problem and he was required as Spider-Man. He was left with new questions, how does Mr. Stark know that Peter is Spider-Man and why would he recruit him on an Avengers mission?
Peter walked into the jet and noticed other heroes, including Captain America and Black Widow. Holding back the urge to flip out he walked over to a suitcase on a seat labeled “Peter” with a spider. He took the suitcase to the bathroom and proceeded to suit up. He started to geek out on the technical aspects of the suit and it took him over 15 minutes just to put it on. Once he had everything but the mask on, he came back out to the main area and saw Ironman, Captain America, and Black Widow all facing him. Tony started, “Hey kid, I know you don’t really do this type of work but I felt the need to add another person to the team for this problem. You see, I created a robot, Ultron, with the aims of helping heroes, like me and you, by having the robots deal with the treats. It turns out that Ultron thinks that humanity can only be saved by its destruction so we are now following it to Sokovia, a poor Eastern European country.”
“We know this is a lot to ask but we need you. We’ve been struggling to hold things together and we need some new blood to bring in new ideas and help be the glue to this team. He is your Avengers I.D.” Captain America says while handing him a sleek metal card, “This helps you enter the tower and will scan you into certain events. Now, we need to get you ready for the mission.”
“We know Ultron is working with 2 individuals, probably meta-humans or mutants. One is a girl with telekinetic abilities and the other is a guy with super speed. We called the Justice League to help but they are fighting off world. We are on our own. We need you to help Clint and I with evacuating citizens. There are 1.75 million people that are living in Novi Grad and we want every single one of them outside the city before any damage occurs.” finished Black Widow.
“Ok, wow, first of all, it is an honor to meet each of you and to help on such an important mission. Thank you for the upgrade, Mr. Stark. I am willing to help in any way that I can.” said Peter, still not believing that the heroes were even acknowledging his existence, let alone asking for his membership on the team. Peter sat down in his chair, again, indicated by a red and blue spider and thought over ideas on how to shut down an evil robot. He did not even notice the weird tickling feeling he was getting.
Once the Avengers landed down in Novi Grad, Peter was shocked at the amount of chaos that was in the city. Fires everywhere, people screaming in terror and running around, it was like the world was ending. He followed orders and helped move people outside the city until he saw a blue blur race by. Instantly recognizing the similarities to a certain scarlet hero’s lightning, Peter reported the sighting to his teammates who said to not engage and continue to help civilians. Not wanting to disappoint and defy his orders, he continued helping the people he could before being hit by something that felt like a freight train. Landing in the ground he looked up and saw a man in a blue suit standing there. The man said, “wхо тхе хелл аре ыоу?” Peter responded saying he spoke English, he got back, “Who you?”
“I’m Spider-Man, who are you?” Peter explained, but did not get a response but instead got slammed into the ground by the speedster. Peter knew he could not hope to keep up with this enemies speed so instead used his web shooters to lay traps on the ground for the speedster to run into. When they did, Peter webbed them up in a cocoon and brought them back to the quinjet.
“I got one while I was saving civilians” he exclaimed once he brought them to the jet. Tony then proceeds to tell them that they got the other one and are holding her on the bottom level. Peter brings the speedster into the bottom level and throws him into a cell next to the woman. The Avengers were questioning the woman but hadn’t seemed to get through since she wasn’t speaking English and black widow hadn’t returned yet.
She looked at Peter and yelled out, “wхо аре ыоу?” His words glowed a dark red and he was instantly in pain. The Avengers looked behind them and saw the spectacle and knew exactly what they had seen. It was only in the movies that a person could actually have seen a soul bond as powerful as Peter’s form since they were so rare. The Avengers got to witness one first hand and switched at looking between Peter and the mysterious woman. Once the light dimmed and the pain subsided he asked, “What is your name?” This caused a similar dark blue color to erupt behind her back and caused her to scream in pain. Her accomplish looked at her in worry and tried to use his powers to no avail.
One her light had dimmed she spoke in an accent “You’re my soulmate? I’m so sorry” as she continued to ramble and apologize to Peter. He was confused on why she was apologizing until Peter saw him. Ultron had approached the ship and was getting ready to send him army upon them. It was a trap, Ultron used the mutants as bait and now had the Avengers surrounded.
“Ok, Tony, I understand if you do not trust me and if you don’t listen to me. I am telling you, let the prisoners out. Let them fight with us. We’ll be overrun if they don’t. I trust them, I trust her.” said Peter
Tony looked at Peter and back to the woman, “Ok, if she is your soulmate I don’t have any reason to think that she would not help us. Especially after such a strong bond.”
“A strong bond? Never mind, we’ll have this talk later.” replied Peter and then uncuffed the woman and the man. The woman spoke to the man and they all nodded to each other. Peter felt his heart race but knew it was going to be ok, it had to be.
The Avengers held their ground around the quinjet and managed to hold off half of the Ultron army. “Is that the best you can do?” yelled Thor and Ultron sent the second wave of bots.
“You had to ask?” replied everyone and the next wave began. As the team battled the robots, Peter noticed a weird red glint in the middle of the city. Next thing the heroes knew, Sokovia started to fly into the air powered by a machine in the center of the city.
“Peter, take you and your girl to the middle of the city,” said Clint, “you need to shut that down before we get too high. We do not have backup. Thor, as strong as he is, cannot safely land us if we get high off the ground.” Peter took the woman and ran to the center of the city. Then, he felt the humming again and knew what to do.
“You need to shut this down!” he said, you have a lot more power than you think. You just need to focus on something and channel it into the machine. Hurry!” The woman put all of her power into the device and attempted to focus. She was losing her strength until she felt Peter’s hand holding hers. “I believe in you,” he said, “Now let's do this!” Red flooded both of their eyes as the power from the woman was amplified between them. It was as if Peter was using her power as well. The combined effort of them both broke the machine but the country was too high before they destroyed the generator. At this height, the country would fall and cause the deaths of millions within the radius of thousands of miles.
Thor got under the rock and tried to push it with all of his strength but he could only slow the descent. All of a sudden, in a flash of yellow and gold, there were 2 other heroes pushing at the bottom of Sokovia. The Flash and Supergirl had arrived to help Thor land Sokovia. Once back on the ground the team gathered up to leave but the woman and man remained off the jet. “You should come with us. We have a lot to talk about. Apparently we are soulmates and pretty important ones since our bond is so strong. We shared our powers for a bit, something that I have never seen before...” said Peter.
“I have,” said Supergirl looking at the Flash, “My soulmate and I also share our powers. We should talk…”
“Once we are back, let us get some rest after the battle, it looks like you need it too.” said Peter. The all loaded up in the jet and headed off back towards New York.