Peter’s life had decidedly gone off of the rails.
Alright, admittedly that wasn’t a very new development. His life had first gone from mundane to insane when he’d started jumping off the walls and in front of cars for fun. An honorable mention was when he’d found Tony Stark sitting on his couch eating his aunt’s date loaf, inviting him to help him fight Captain America. As well as the time he’d crashed a plane with him still on it, or went to space, or fought Thanos directly–
Okay. Maybe he should have seen something like this coming, given all of the crazy things he’d done in the past couple of years. But Peter truly could not wrap his head around the insane circumstances that led him to be standing in place in the middle of an English street at night, chest pounding as he took a breath in order to process what he’d found out. Of course, it was just his luck that the person he’d decided to trust, a person he’d spilled his damn heart out to, was actually secretly evil and trying to kill everyone on their world. He’d been so cautious, carefully avoiding SHIELD before they finally forced him to cooperate with them (shooting Ned with a tranquilizer gun in the meantime, which was definitely not cool). But Mysterio had been someone he’d felt like he could actually talk to, share his feelings with. He had treated him like an equal, which was a nice change from Happy. He appreciated Happy immensely, he really did, but it got hard to tolerate how he’d treat him like a seven-year-old, or like a glass bottle, poised to break at any moment. It was just nice to have impartial ears to talk to, which he supposed was why it was so easy to tell Beck everything.
He winced, thinking about all of the details of what he’d told Beck about himself. He not only knew his identity, but he’d told him about the trauma he’d gone through and how he had just wanted to go on a normal school trip with his friends and talk to MJ about–
His heart dropped. MJ. He’d told him about MJ.
His legs started to run before he could even fully process that thought, sprinting toward their hotel. He knew– he knew about MJ and– and Ned, Betty, even Flash– all of them. He used all of his extra strength to propel himself forward in the stealth suit SHIELD had made him, swinging from the top of a building and flying through the air. His friends were all in danger, and it was his fault. Again.
A loud boom to his right caused him to stop in his tracks, and he covered his ears before searching for the source of the noise. In the distance, hidden behind some buildings, he could see a wall of fire begin to climb directly toward the sky. “Shit, shit, shit,” Peter repeated to himself under his breath, and he changed his course to the direction of the smoke. He had to help the people there, and chances were that the fire was coming from wherever Mysterio was hiding out. For a moment, he allowed himself to miss New York as he wove through the winding streets– New York was organized, had a nice grid system that anyone could navigate, and none of these confusingly placed roads that hindered his direct pathway to whatever the threat was.
He finally slowed to a stop when he reached the source of the fire, and his breath caught in his throat. Wreaking havoc on all of the buildings in the near vicinity stood a gigantic elemental– similar to the water and earth ones that Peter had encountered earlier, except this one– this one was made out of rocks and lava.
“Oh, of course it’s lava. That’s just great,” he muttered to himself as he took a second to mentally prepare himself before using one of his webs to catch one of the elemental’s hands and pull it back before it could punch another building. Thank god his web fluid was fireproof.
“Hey!” He shouted at the monster as it turned its huge head to see what had a grip on his arm. “I know it’s you, Beck!”
His voice was almost drowned out by the deafening sound of screaming and explosions around him, but the monster seemed to hear him as it began to look at him.
“Yeah,” Peter laughed, “you heard me!”
At that, the monster raised its other fist, slowly bringing it down on Peter’s head. He dodged out of the way just in time, shooting a web and swinging to the wall of a building to his side. He ran up the side of it as the ground exploded beneath him, engulfed in a cloud of fire, and he could feel the intense heat through the dark fabric of the stealth suit. He vaulted off the building as the wall underneath his feet also burst into flame, flipping in the air before swinging to the top of a different building. He desperately scanned his surroundings for any sign of Mysterio, but all he could see was the elemental and people fleeing, scrambling in every which way.
His eye suddenly caught on one of the civilians, who was decidedly not running away from the lava monster, and instead staring straight up at where Peter was crouching. He could feel his heart stutter as he made eye contact with a terrified Ned.
The elemental staggered as the ground beneath it shifted, and one of its legs moved over to where Ned was frozen. Peter let out a strangled cry, launching himself in Ned’s direction. He swung by, scooping him up with one arm just in time to avoid the explosion that took place just seconds after in the exact spot Ned had been standing in.
He set them down once they were a safe distance away. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit–“ Ned was repeating himself over and over again as he regained his footing. Peter made sure that nobody could see them before he lifted his mask up so that it rested on his forehead and whirled around to face him. “Ned, what the hell were you doing?!?”
Ned had wide eyes. “Well I was trying to find you, and then the fire monster thing appeared, and you showed up and did that super cool parkour move you did (which you have to show me again), and anyway I just–“
“Yeah, okay, okay listen to me for a second–“
“I mean I’ve never really seen you in action like that, you were like ‘thwip thwip’ and the monster was like ‘ahhh’, and that was pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life–“
Peter cut him off, frustrated. “Listen to me!”
Ned fell silent, his mouth open. Peter continued. “Where’s MJ?”
Ned nodded in a direction. “She and the rest of the group went that way when I went to go find you, they’re getting somewhere safe.” Peter breathed out a sigh of relief. Good.
A boom punctured the silence, making them both wince and move a few more steps away from the direction of the monster. Peter went on. “Okay, you have got to listen to me really carefully. Mysterio, he’s the magic cape guy with the fishbowl head?”
Ned made a noise of recognition. “The Thor-Iron Man guy? From Venice?”
“Yeah, him! He’s evil, he’s trying to kill me and everyone, he’s controlling these things!” He gestured in the direction of the elemental, as Ned’s mouth fell open. “What?!?”
“I know! Anyway, you need to get out of here– call Happy, tell him everything, I’ll catch up with you guys after I find Mysterio.”
Ned looked overwhelmed with information. “O-Okay. I can do that. Are you gonna be okay?”
Peter nodded minutely. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” He waved a hand as if to shake away the worry. Ned nodded, looking more determined, but still a little uncertain.
“Peter, I–“
Peter suddenly felt a tingling at the base of his neck, and he knew immediately what that meant. Danger. “Get down!” He yelled at Ned, who looked confused. He lunged forward and pushed him away from the monster, who was suddenly simply yards away.
The force of the next explosion knocked them both through the air.
Peter’s head hit the ground hard as he landed about ten feet away. His ears were ringing, and it was as if everything was happening in slow motion. It was the vulture all over again, that plane crash on the beach at Coney Island, the way his head felt fuzzy and he couldn’t focus. He blinked, coughing up smoke and trying to remember how to breathe.
The night sky above him was lit up by the fire, and dirt and ash circled around in the air. He finally regained the ability to sit up, his lungs sore as he breathed in and out shallowly. He tugged the mask back down over his face, leaving his mouth open so he could breathe more easily. He was feeling at the back of his head through the suit, testing for any blood when he realized.
Ned.
He staggered to his feet, limbs screaming, and frantically looked around for his best friend. Where, where, where was he. Peter’s gaze finally zeroed in on a piece of red fabric about 20 feet away– Ned’s shirt.
Ned was lying with his back to Peter, unmoving.
“No,” Peter heard himself say, as if through a long tunnel. He reached Ned before he was even aware he was moving forward and turned him over so that he was lying on his back. Peter fought the urge to empty the contents of his stomach onto the ground as he saw the blood coating the side of Ned’s face, matting his hair to his head.
“Oh my god, oh my god no,” he heard, his mouth moving without him even realizing. “Ned, Ned, wake up, you gotta wake up. C’mon, guy in the chair, Ned!” He leaned over the other boy, leaning Ned’s head on his lap and resting his head on his chest. Heartbeat, heartbeat, please. Heartbeat– there! He finally heard the faint beating, and he collapsed over him out of relief.
“...Peter?” Ned’s voice was weak, almost not even there. Peter’s head shot up, and Ned’s eyes were fluttering open. Peter let out a choked sob. “Ned, Ned, you’re okay, it’s okay.”
Ned coughed, and blood dribbled down his chin. Peter let out another sob, tears wetting the fabric of the mask. He pulled it all the way off, as there were no people around (even though he was pretty sure he would have done so even if there had been).
“You’re gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay.” He was almost babbling at this point, the words quick and choked. This was so familiar, way too familiar. Ned grasped his arm where it was lying over his chest, with what strength he had left. “You–“
He coughed again, more blood bubbling up out of his mouth. Peter used the arm Ned wasn’t holding to wipe some of it away. Ned tried again. “You–“
Ned seemed to be having trouble saying what he wanted to say. Peter looked at him, aware of the way Ned was tightly holding onto his arm. Finally, Ned was able to wrestle the words out.
“You did this.”
The phrase was so short, so simple, and yet they stabbed through Peter like a knife. “W-What?” He stuttered out, horrified.
But it was as if Ned couldn’t hear him. His eyes left Peter’s, and instead rested on some object in the distance and went glassy.
“No, no, no.” Peter was repeating himself, over and over again. “Ned, Ned, wake up, wake up please–“
His pleads turned into sobs as his crying became too intense to form words. He rested his head on Ned’s chest again, searching for a heartbeat. When he finally came up empty, he let out a piercing wail and succumbed to his tears.
He was utterly alone, and there was nobody to hear his despair.
—
Or so he thought.
Above them, on a rooftop, Mysterio looked down at the boy, curled in the fetal position. He almost felt bad for him, but he knew it was necessary for him to win the fight. His cape fluttered in the wind as he wondered exactly how long it would take for Peter’s advanced immune system to flush out the gas that he’d unknowingly inhaled some time before. It was interesting, he’d never had to use that gas on someone of his strength.
He also thought it interesting that the boy had not pictured the girl instead. He supposed since Peter had mentioned that he’d known this friend since he was 10, that they had a stronger bond which is why Peter’s brain had chosen to give him that terrible fate and not someone else.
Down below, he saw Peter shift and stand up. He was trembling, but he replaced the mask on his head.
Damn, that boy is stubborn, Mysterio thought to himself.
Whatever. He stepped away from the edge of the rooftop and started making his way in the direction of where he knew Peter’s hotel was.
He was gonna kill him either way.