It's Not Every Day You Wake Up In Space
Peta woke up with a start.
The first thing she noticed was a fading pain in the back of her head. The second thing she noticed was the absence of Toni.
‘Do not panic.’ Karen’s voice echoed through her head, pre-emptively stopping the quickening of her breath. ‘You have been captured by aliens that seem to go by the names Kraglin and Yondu. They were only interested in Miss Stark, but you convinced the blue one to take you as well.’
Peta nodded, taking a moment to adjust to the way Karen’s presence in her head felt.
“Thanks K,” she answered, her mind now calm enough to process the information properly.
Karen’s voice was fond as she replied, ‘You’d be lost without me.’
She swivelled her head around, quickly taking in her surroundings. The room she was in was dark and barren, the only light being filtered through the bars and translucent energy field occupying one wall. Peta immediately headed to that side of her cell – cos she was definitely in a cell – her eyes quickly adjusting to the dimness. The bars were closest to her and seemed to just be normal, non-automated metal, but the outer door was definitely opened through some kind of technological key.
Peta paused, listening intently, but she couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the door, only the slight hum of energy from the outer door. After five minutes of straining her ears, Peta decided it was safe and started checking the bars for weak points. She peered through them carefully, examining the edges of the energy field with a critical eye until she found what seemed to be the point the door opened from. A small silver section peeked out behind the field, just large enough for her to brush her fingers against and as Peta did just that, her Extremis enhancements helped her pick up the small hum of electricity flowing through it.
Karen hummed in approval of Peta’s escape idea.
Peta knew she had to work relatively quickly, so she pulled her shoes off – combat boots with a slight heal that MJ had helped her pick out, much like the rest of her outfit that day. Then, she crouched down and wrapped her hands around the bottom of the bar on the edge of the cell opening, where it connected to the floor. She focused on her Extremis power and felt the heat course down her arms and pour out of her hands. The waited a few seconds, then started moving the metal bar, bending it and loosening its positioning. After she’d weakened it enough, she jumped, flipping as she did and landing on the roof to do the same. She flipped herself once again to send another quick jolt of heat into edge at the bottom of the cell before bracing one leg on the wall and one on another bar and pulling from the middle of the bar.
It came away cleanly and easily, without her having to exert too much strength. She could probably have pulled the bar out with brute force alone, but this way was both easier and quieter. Plus, Toni had always taught her to use her head before running into a situation and swinging fists.
She placed the bar down carefully, resisting the urge to fling it across the room as her emotions reared their ugly heads inside her.
Her face twisted into a snarl.
How dare that big blue asshole go after Toni! And What? To make her a bride to some, Star Lord? Peta hadn’t even seen the guy, but she already knew she would never let that happen. No matter what.
And on top of that, he’d used her against Toni! Peta clenched her fists together.
‘Deep breaths, Peta,’ Karen’s soothing voice echoed through her head. ‘You need to stay calm to get to Toni.’
Peta squeezed her eyes shut and followed Karen’s advice until she no longer felt like punching a hole in the wall. With an afterthought of thanks towards Karen, Peta approached the door and put her hand on the small silver section she’d detected power from before. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Whilst Extremis hadn’t made her technopathic like it had Toni, instead enhancing her other abilities, Karen’s presence in her head meant the AI could mess with the electronic locks for her, since she didn’t have the tools or the time to do it manually.
Within a few seconds of feeling her AI rummaging with the systems, the energy field flickered off.
Peta carefully stepped out of the cell, making the conscious decision to leave her boots behind, knowing that it would be quieter and easier to stick to walls.
She creeped down the hall, straining her ears as she swivelled her head around to make sure no one was creeping up behind her.
Right, Karen, what do we now?
Immediately, Peta felt an uncomfortable tingling, not unlike when Karen downloaded into her brain, but much less painful. Suddenly, she could perfectly picture the layout of the ship in her mind’s eye.
She froze.
Woah. What the hell?
Peta felt Karen giggle. ‘Sorry, Pete. I should probably give you some warning next time.’
Peta shook her head, rolling her eyes, but electing not to bite anything back like she usually would. Now was not the time for banter – Toni was in trouble.
She started creeping forwards again as a green path from where she was to the control room lit up on her mental map.
Surprisingly, she met no resistance on her way there.
Within about five minutes, she was standing in front of the door. She took the moment to strip – peeling off her black mini-skit, white doctor who t-shirt and the red flannel tied around her waist but deciding to keep on the small-holed fishnets. With barely a thought, the Iron-Spider suit flowed across her skin like water, encompassing her underwear and tights.
She jumped and flipped onto the ceiling, pointing her arm out and readying electric-charged web.
“Okay, Karen,” she whispered. “Open it up.”
With a soft zooming sound, the door opened.
The people in the room froze. Peta immediately recognised them.
“Miss Stark?” she asked.
The guns and various blasters that had appeared at the opening of the door melted back into Toni’s sleek black, red and gold Bleeding Edge armour.
“Peta?” the woman asked.
Peta crept into the room along the roof, before flipping to land on the floor once more. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she was enveloped in a crushing hug from Miss Stark, who’s armour had melted back into her Extremis enhanced body.
“Thank god your safe.” She pulled away and fixed Peta with a glare. “What the hell, Parker?
Peta ducked her head. “I’m sorry, Miss Stark.”
A muffled grunt drew Peta’s attention to one of the chair’s in the room. On it was the non-blue guy from earlier, thoroughly restrained by both some spare chains Toni must have found and some of the spare nanite ropes from Toni’s suit.
Toni waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about him. He’s useless.” Cue an indignant squawk from the man in the chair. “What we need to focus on is that shit you pulled back on Earth.”
Peta shrugged and gave a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t just let you get abducted by yourself. I know how you feel about space.”
Toni narrowed her eyes at her intern. Peta’s eyes drifted over her shoulder and immediately widened.
“Woah,” she gasped. “That’s so beautiful.”
Toni glanced behind her to the wall of curved glass that was working as the ship’s windshield. Her lip quirked.
“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.”
Peta didn’t miss the flash of panic that gripped her features. She put a hand on her shoulder.
“Why don’t we focus on getting out of here?”
Toni nodded and strode towards the control panel.
“We are so talking about this later, Young Lady. Don’t think you distracted me.”
Peta’s lips thinned. Damn. She felt Karen chuckle softly in the back of her mind. Oh, shut up.
Karen did not shut up. In fact, the laughter got louder and more distracting. Peta scowled as she stepped up to help Toni.
They worked silently for a few moments, each AI interacting with each other as they fully downloaded into the ship’s mainframe, whilst their humans ghosted their fingers over the various buttons, gages and levers that were on the dashboard. Peta wasn’t being all that useful, mostly her brain felt like it was melting in relief as most of Karen’s data streamed into the ship and stopped pushing on her mind.
Toni turned to Peta. “Well, Jarvis thinks –”
She was cut off as a deafening alarm started blaring around the room and flashing red lights replaced the previous dingy yellow ones. Peta recoiled at the unexpected sound, clutching her ears and gritting her teeth as it reverberated painfully around her head. Her body curled into a foetal crouch at the force of the sound.
Toni froze for half a second before immediately turning back to the dashboard.
“Well, fuck,” she cursed. “Jarvis just told me another ship docked against us.”
She glanced down at Peta. “You okay, Pet?”
Peta grimaced, but eventually her mask melted into place and started filtering the sound, so it wasn’t deafening. She massaged away the beginnings of a headache.
‘Heads up, Spider-Boss.’
Toni’s eyes turned to the door as the determined frown Peta associated with her battle-face set onto her face.
“Get ready, Spider-ling. ETA is ten seconds.”
Peta had just managed to straighten into a standing position when the doors opened. Toni’s head tilted, blasters at the ready. Peta felt the legs extend from the Iron-Spider armour and she knew her eyes were glowing.
Peta could here the sarcastic smile in Toni’s voice, despite the helmet.
“Why hello,” she purred. “Why are you guys dropping in?”