Chapter 11
The opening trills of “Dancing Queen” reverberated off the concrete floor and walls.
Peter quickly surveyed the area. “I was hoping for ‘Eye of the Tiger,’” he confessed, indicating the music blasting from the speakers while mentally estimating the distance to the door. The larger room outside the chamber was an open, industrial-looking bay with fifty-foot high walls. “But I guess that’s not on a lot of wedding playlists. It’s Vanessa Carlton or Black Sabbath for Tony Stark.”
Standing between him and the door in an inadvertent Charlie's Angels action pose were Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, and Bucky Barnes, each one a soldier and veteran of war. It was a stroke of rare good fortune he didn't have to worry about Thor, and Banner would hopefully stay busy.
“So you got stuck with babysitting duty, huh?” he asked them. “I have to warn you, I'm a handful.”
Barnes tensed and asked, “Are you really going to fight your way out?”
“If I have to, Sergeant.” Peter rotated his shoulders. “You can still move aside.”
That earned him one of the Winter Soldier’s patented hard eye rolls. “This is stupid.”
Well, that much they agreed on.
ABBA sang, “…you can jive, having the time of your life…”
It would be one thing if he just had to get past them, but Peter needed to make a pit stop by Stark’s lab and couldn’t have anyone following hot on his trail. Plus, he needed to scope out the transportation situation, which hopefully didn’t end with the Quinjet. So the level of effort involved was regrettably promoted to Incapacitate. Neither side intended to actually hurt the other but they weren’t going to stop at ‘please,’ either.
“Please—” started Captain America, when Peter suddenly struck.
He went for the legs. Peter shot a web at Cap’s ankles and was about to yank back when Rogers slammed the edge of his shield down on the web strand, pinning it to the floor and cutting off the force of Peter’s pull. It couldn’t slice through the web, however, and now the shield's edge was stuck to the strand.
So Peter changed direction and yanked up. The shield bounced like Cap had dropped it on a trampoline and it made a satisfying clank as it crashed against the Avenger’s helmet. Rogers fell back a step and Peter fired simultaneous webs at his foot, sealing it to the floor, and another at the shield, yanking it from his grasp to come sailing into Peter's hand.
“I always wanted to play Frisbee with this thing,” said Peter admiringly.
Then he noticed the little device anchored on the shield. Before he could shot-put the thing away, it detonated with a blue flash. He shielded his face instinctively but the device merely expelled a stasis field, obviously derived from the Chitauri tech, that suspended him as though he were riding the Willy Wonka bubbles to nowhere.
“We weren't going to use a stun grenade on a seizure risk,” Sam Wilson said huffily, noting his surprise.
“Can't blame a guy for flinching,” said Peter. “Dancing Queen” burbled through the gelatinous miasma as if playing from underwater.
The Avengers drew forward. Peter was startled to see Rogers was free of the web that had pinned his foot to the floor.
Web fluid didn't dissolve for a full day! Peter was indignant. “How’d—?”
Cap waggled a little vial Peter recognized as his web solvent. “A gift from our Spider-Man. For when his hands are full.”
“Cute,” Peter grumbled, hanging in the air like Peter Pan and wearing about as much spandex.
His web strand was still attached to the shield. With a swing of his arm, Peter fought through the thick miasma to whip the shield hard at the ceiling high overhead. It shot up with a whirring sound, attached to the strand still attached to Peter. The tractor beam moved with him until the shield's momentum carried him out of reach of the transparent blue muck like someone dragging fish bait through Jell-O.
Sailing up, Peter landed lightly on the ceiling, catching the shield in its rebound from the concrete. “You can tell Thor I stole that move from him,” he shouted from fifty feet overhead.
Barnes threw another stasis grenade at him and Peter hurled the shield at it. Midair, the two collided with a dull bonk and, detonating on impact to the disco beat, the device suspended the shield thirty feet off the ground.
“Guess it doesn't always return, huh?” Peter commented. The shield's defiance of every law of physics had long aggravated him.
“Are you enjoying this?” Wilson demanded.
“I take my yuks where I can get them.” Peter lassoed the shield and maneuvered it further out of reach, bringing it gently bouncing to rest near the ceiling, and mused, “Hey, it's not often someone's just trying to make me sweat, not bleed. Kind of like a high-stakes workout. I'm adding ABBA to my gym playlist.”
He did not mention that it was, so far, the only song on that playlist. He'd trim down, okay?
Wilson's wings fired up and he blasted from the ground. Peter didn't wait for the Falcon to come to him and launched down, intending to sail past him and web him up from below.
The Avenger rocketed upwards, then suddenly pressed something and Redwing shot out from his back like a missile. Peter yelped in surprise and, twisting in midair before the thing could tattoo him a third eye, scissor-kicked the little machine like a penalty shot. It went whirring with a pitiable R2-D2 squeal to crash into a wall and clatter to the floor in a heap of metal.
Wilson hollered angrily but he was too close and Peter's trajectory was off course now and they were going to crash—
With arms flung out like a tightrope walker Peter skittered down the Falcon's back like he was a rope bridge, then leaped off to land in a superhero crouch that would have made Deadpool proud. Barnes and Rogers approached warily.
The Falcon pivoted with better agility than Peter would have credited the wings for and sailed down to a sliding stop. “Look what you did to my Redwing!” he said furiously.
Peter actually did feel kind of guilty about the little guy. “Stark can fix him,” he said, “But I'm not getting hit by a drone twice. That's just embarrassing.”
Eyes on Wilson, Peter casually ducked a stasis grenade that Barnes chucked at his head from behind. It struck the floor and detonated perilously close to Wilson's foot. The Falcon jumped back and made an indignant gesture at the Winter Soldier, who shrugged. Cap looked exasperated, like a dad moderating squabbling kids.
Peter tapped his temple. “Spidey sense,” he reminded them. “Yours has it too.”
“What are you two, precogs?” muttered the Falcon.
Peter preened a little. “Just call me Minority Report.”
“Is there literally any movie either of you hasn't seen?”
Barnes and Rogers rushed in. Light reflected dully from the Winter Soldier's black arm as he swung it in a grappling motion, trying to pin Peter by the shoulders.
Rogers slid behind Peter and soon the shoe was on the other foot: in a real fight Peter would have dispatched them with some hearty Lucha Libre maneuvers—maybe he should stop getting all his moves and some of his one-liners from pro wrestling—but here it was like he was fighting with both hands webbed behind his back. He didn't want to truly piss off the people helping him, as he'd need to come back to this place, so he thoughtfully parried their strikes while wondering if Rogers only had one vial of solvent. Well, only one way to find out...
“Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine...” Was it just Peter's imagination, or were they fighting in time to the music?
The three Avengers were willing to put a little more elbow grease into putting him down. Rogers tried to kick his legs out from under him. Peter bobbed up lightly in a kind of figure skater's split jump and thumped one foot in the chests of both Barnes in front of him and Rogers at his back. The old soldiers staggered back, grunting hard but not as winded as Peter expected; he probably could have put a little more mustard on that one.
The Falcon's shadow darkened the ground. Instead of flying at him directly as Peter would have anticipated, he went just beyond and flared his metal wings, creating a barrier that stopped Peter short, then propelled backwards in a steam-shoveling action, feet just a foot off the ground and wings angled to bear down on Spider-Man.
Peter shot out his palm and it acted as a speed bump to knock the Falcon up and away.
Just then, though, a blast of glitching unexpectedly knocked him off balance. Still buoyed by the quantum chamber, it was over in a flash but by then Barnes and Rogers were back. Barnes got his metal arm around Peter in a wrestler's grip and Rogers knocked out his legs, sending Peter to his knees. Then both of them worked to pin Peter's arms, wrist already raised to deliver a web, behind his back.
“Just stop!” Cap growled. “You're going to hurt yourself!”
“Or us,” muttered Barnes.
Peter wriggled against their grip. Barnes and Rogers strained to keep him pinned. Over his shoulder he caught a better look at Barnes's arm. “Woah, vibranium?” he said appreciatively. “You’ve leveled up. That's a custom paint job. How'd you get on the Wakandan VIP list?”
“T'Challa tried to kill him,” Wilson said casually, taking out a pair of Stark's nano tech binders, “and apparently regrets it.” Peter didn't need spider-sense to feel the Winter Soldier rolling his eyes at Wilson. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cap frown, possibly wondering why Spider-Man was taking this development so lightly.
Peter eyed the binders. Those nano tech restraints were a bigger threat than all three of the Avengers combined. Knowing Stark, a considerable amount of adamantium was involved.
“Dancing Queen” wound down and Peter wondered regretfully whether a slow dance was coming.
Instead, to his delight, the next song in line was Hanson's “MMMBop.” Deadpool would just be living his best life right now. Of course, if he were here, things wouldn't be going quite so bloodlessly.
All three Avengers groaned, drowning out Peter's snigger. It was a strong reaction considering how two of them had been on ice for the better part of the boy band era.
“Okay, now I know Pepper's messing with Tony,” said Rogers.
Short of breath from the effort of keeping Peter's arms pinned behind his back, Barnes groused: “Can somebody shut off the freakin' playlist?”
“Don't you dare,” said Peter.
“I'm going to call Wanda,” Cap told him reassuringly. “She'll come back and handle the glitching. This is for the best.”
Wilson was approaching with the binders, but Peter had what he needed by then. “Yeah, it is,” he agreed, then said suddenly: “Actually, wait! Hang on—”
They waited expectantly. Still on his knees, Peter nodded along to the music.
“Well?” said Wilson with impatience.
“Hang on a sec!”
“The hell you—”
“Okay here it comes—wait for it—” Peter rocked onto his heels, bracing for it— “Mmm...BOP!” he yelled, rearing back and planting both feet in Wilson's chest right on musical cue. Barnes and Rogers lost their balance against the sudden weight displacement and Peter heaved forward, easily dislodging their grips and throwing them over his back to tumble in front of him in a move he'd definitely appropriated from wrestling.
“Ba du bop, ba duba bop!”
He shot webs at them both and yanked hard, sending them spinning back in the strand like yo-yos. “I kind of hate that I know all the words to this. And Stark's a bald-faced liar if he says he doesn't.”
Wilson made to propel out of immediate reach. Peter, an Avenger now cocooned in each hand, shoved them at the Falcon. The sticky webs stuck to him too, resembling giant weird floaties on a child's arms, and all three bowled backwards.
“Were you just waiting to do that?” Barnes demanded even as he struggled against the web restraints.
“When you get a soundtrack, you make the most of it,” Peter lectured him.
He made short work of webbing Wilson up alongside the other two, ignoring the curses from him and Barnes. The Falcon's wings were not easily removed and he decided against trying, instead webbing them up solidly.
Grossed out, Wilson snapped over his shoulder: “Dude, stop! You are getting web all up in there!”
“Sore loser.”
“I really hope this stuff ain't coming out of you.”
“No, real spiders spin webs from their butts. If you see me 'bout to moon you, then it's time to worry.”
“I think I'd worry anyway.”
Cap looked exasperated. “We'll get free again. You can't get to my solvent through the web.”
“Nah.” Peter stood back, revealing the vial of solvent in his hand like a magician producing the missing card from the deck. “Thanks for confirming there's just the one, though.” They couldn't see his grin through the mask. “How often do I have to tell people to watch the hands?”
The ghost of a smile tugged at Steve Rogers's mouth. “Well, I guess you've earned this,” he said sardonically, then turned serious. “For your sake, and for the sake of our Spider-Man, I hope it works.”
Peter could tell he really did hope that. He had to hope that, or else believe he'd failed to stop Peter from barreling into a catastrophe. “I'll be fine,” he promised, hiding one hand with a glitching finger behind his back. “I seem to recall you pulling a stunt like this back in 1943. What if you hadn't?” He glanced at Barnes, who'd turned his eyes to the floor. “What if you'd listened to everyone who told you otherwise?”
Rogers had nothing to say to that. Peter took a step back. “Remember, tell Spider-Man not to unmask. Do it as soon as Banner or Shuri find you. I'll call them once I'm gone. Do not come after me—I mean it. You will just make it harder. I'm serious: back off. Tell the rest of them too.”
Looking up, he saw the shield still suspended in the gravity field near the ceiling. “How long does that stasis last?” he asked.
Rogers sighed. “About an hour.”
“Well, you're not directly under it, so you'll be fine. It'd be like dropping a dinner plate off the Empire State building.”
He made to step for the doorway, then paused, struck by a thought. Quickly, he jogged over to the control panel for the quantum chamber and leaned over the dock.
“What are you doing now?” Wilson grumped.
“Adding a little something to Stark's playlist,” Peter said distractedly. “Consider it a wedding gift.” Then he stepped back, satisfied. “There we go.”
“MMMBop” was fading out. It was replaced by a whispering voice that rose suddenly to a crescendo:
“Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the...FLOOOOOOOORRRR!”
“Have fun with this,” Peter said, trotting back past them and pointing to the ceiling, from which earsplitting heavy metal now blared. “When it's done, it's going to play Vanessa Carlton's 'Ordinary Day' on repeat. Wish me luck!”
“You suck,” Peter heard one of them mutter as he left them behind. Then, grudgingly, they added: “Good luck.”
.
.
After leaving Stark's lab, Peter jogged outside fiddling with the transmitter he'd filched and hoping there was a car nearby with manual locks. Much as he'd like to take Stark's Ferrari for a spin, the billionaire was going to be pissed enough and Peter didn't have time to hack through the car's security system.
Trotting to the car lot, Peter played match game with the vehicles parked there. Ferrari: Stark. Environmentally-conscious Tesla: Banner. Nondescript black SUV: Romanov. Lamborghini Aventador: Stark. New black Indian motorcycle: Barnes. Minivan:...Barton? Did Barton have kids? Peter made a mental note of the model. Snazzy BMW: Wilson. Scruffy red Jeep: Maximoff. Vision didn't have a car because Vision was his own car. Thor rode the Bifrost.
And...a classic blue Volkswagen Beetle. Well, if that didn't just scream—or, in the case of its owner, politely state—Steve Rogers.
Peter stared around. Weren't there company cars? Ah, but they wouldn't have manual locks. He sighed and jogged to the Beetle, figuring it'd be easier to parallel park than the minivan. Hopefully Cap wouldn't be too irate, but Peter was aware of the tab he was racking up on their good will.
It didn't take long to pick the lock with the thin metal rod he'd swiped from Stark's lab and bent into a bobby pin shape. At least he could return the thing without busting open its windows. Craning his head around the steering column, he cracked the casing open and found the starter and power wires. A moment later, the Beetle spluttered to life.
Two tense hours later, the NYC cityscape loomed ahead and Fisk's raspy growl was in Peter's ear.
“Glad you came around,” the Kingpin said.
“An ultimatum's an ultimatum,” said Peter, “and I want to go home.”
That, at least, was true.
Fisk sounded amused. “Did you fly the coop?”
“The Avengers don't know I'm gone. By the time they find out, well...it'll be done. Or near enough.”
”How do I know they’re gonna respect this deal? What’s stopping them from whisking Vanessa and Richard away some other time?”
”That won’t happen.”
“It had better not,” Fisk said in a low, warning rumble. “You have no idea what will come if it does.” Then his tone changed. “So how come you're so keen to keep Parker's secret, and not the Avengers? This ain't even your universe. You're gonna go home, what do you care whether Parker makes the evening news?”
“I owe him. But I'm not just doing this for Spider-Man,” said Peter, his eyes on the road. “I'm also doing it for Vanessa and Richard Fisk.”
This was not the answer Kingpin was expecting. During his surprised silence, Peter steered down the EZ-Pass express lane to pass through the Lincoln Tunnel, the main artery leading into New York City, praying traffic congestion would be light for once. It moved with the typical cacophony of horns and heedless jaywalkers, but it moved.
Peter said, “I know what happened to them in the last universe. It happened to them in this one, and it's going to happen in mine, because in my universe, Wilson Fisk doesn't know what's coming. You do, and I think you won't let it happen again. This might be the best chance to save them.
“But,” he added, “you still have to keep the bargain. I go to my dimension and bring back Vanessa and Richard, you zip your lips. Everyone wins. And you said it yourself: the Prowler won't be fooled by a hologram, and that's the only gimmick we've got.”
“I told you, a deal's a deal.” Kingpin didn't comment further on Peter's motives, but Peter's mention of gimmicks seemed to give him pause. “But I want insurance. I want to know there ain't tricks up your sleeve. For all I know, you might have robots or clones or somethin.' So my Prowler's going with you.”
Peter's pulse quickened. “Those weren't the terms!” he snapped, slamming on the brakes at a sudden red light.
“They are now. What's it matter, John Doe? Don't want the supervision?” Fisk said cuttingly. “'Sides, if I know me, you're gonna need all the help you can get. Stealing from me ain't a one-man job. And if you leave him there in your universe,” he added with menace, “if he's not back here to tell me, to my face, that they're the real deal, well...you can guess. And I've given him a code, so I know he's not a hologram.”
“It won't be a problem,” Peter said roughly. “Fine. Tell me where to meet you.”
“No. My man will come to you.” His tone brooked no argument and Peter knew there would be no convincing Fisk to meet in person until Vanessa and Richard breathed in this dimension again. “The Prowler will be at the...Sanctum, is it called? in half an hour. Once you're gone I'll let your wizard know where to go to open the portal again on this side. You just have to make the train back.”
“I think we're owed an extension on the deadline,” said Peter.
Fisk grunted a small laugh. “You know what? Sure. For schlepping back from the Hudson Valley, you're rewarded with another hour. That gives you four. Never let it be said I'm not a reasonable man.”
Peter was glad the jackass couldn't hear his eyes roll.
“Besides, I figure I owe ya. If it weren't for you, the collider would have failed me and I'd be back where I started. I'm getting my wife and son back—and this way, I get to keep them.”
Peter suppressed a chill.
.
.
Ned was waiting for him when he pulled up before the Sanctum fifteen minutes later, hurriedly gesturing him to park in the empty spot he'd been standing in to the irritation of every other motorist trying to park there.
Peter executed his fastest ever parallel park and sprang from the Beetle, slamming the door shut. “Thanks for coming on short notice,” he called.
“'Course, man. Whose car is that?” Ned asked, craning his head to look back at the Beetle while they hurried up to the Sanctum's door.
“Uh, Steve Rogers.'”
“You stole Captain America's car?” Ned said, frankly admiring. He pulled the door open and Peter grinned at him before hurtling inside.
Wong stood in the tiled foyer, his normally placid face tense. “I hope you know what you're doing,” he said by way of greeting.
“Me too,” Peter admitted, stopping before him. He quickly updated them on the conversation he'd had with Kingpin, and the man's insistence the Prowler tag along.
The first hour-and-fifty minutes of Peter's drive from the Hudson Valley had been spent on the phone with Wong and then Ned; the former's incredulity giving way to cautious incentive the more Peter talked, the latter determined to help from the moment he'd picked up the phone. When Peter had asked after his alternate self, Ned had reported that Parker had already warned him about the bomb about to hit Forest Hills.
“Why didn't you tell Peter about this?” Ned asked him uncertainly, once they all stood together. “I mean, Parker. Maybe he could help.”
“He's got enough to worry about. And if it goes wrong, ah—better if he's here. I know this is a lot to ask,” he said, suddenly concerned.
Ned shook his head. Peter noticed he'd caved and bought the new Jordans he and Parker had been admiring. “Dude, what'd I say? I'm the guy in the chair! Or out of it, this time.”
For a moment Peter was struck by what a friend Parker had in Ned Leeds, and smiled at him.
“Here,” he said to Wong, producing a package wrapped in a paper Trader Joe's bag he'd found in streetside recycling. Unclasping his hands, Wong shook its content open and examined it closely. “Is that enough?"
For a moment the sorcerer frowned consideringly, turning it over in his hands. “I believe so,” he said gruffly, “but it's not ideal. In better circumstances I would want more time to study this.”
“What about these circumstances?”
Wong cracked a small smirk. “I am no poor sorcerer myself. It will be done.” With a wave of his hand and some golden symbols, he made the bag and its content disappear into a magical “pocket” for safekeeping, as the Prowler would consider its presence strange. Then he grew serious. “And what of your end? Whether it will work is entirely contingent on a leap of faith.”
Ned looked at Peter, waiting for the answer.
Peter couldn't help a lopsided smile at the irony. “Sometimes a leap of faith is all you've got left.”
“Yes...but it's a long way down. That's why I'm concerned.”
That's why Peter was too. “Leave it to me.”
“I suppose,” drawled Wong, “I'll have to. Once I leave the Sanctum, you know, I will have to recall Stephen Strange. This place must not remain unguarded for long.”
“I'll guard it,” grinned Ned.
“Oh gee, Strange will have to house-sit?” Peter said innocently. “Bummer.”
Wong rolled his eyes. “Yes, it will be so inconvenient to get one of the Avengers out of your hair, particularly the one who would be in the best position to try and stop you.”
“Not from here he isn't.”
“You realize I shall have to answer for my part in this?”
“You're not an Avenger. What're they gonna do, kick you out?”
Ned nodded thoughtfully, sticking his bottom lip out. “Starting the alternates. I like it.” He looked at Wong. “'Sides...we're doing this for Peter. Our Peter, I mean. And for the lady and her kid.”
Though Wong exhaled deeply, Peter knew he was on board. “Wong," said Peter, "your next karaoke's on me.”
“Damn right it is,” muttered the sorcerer, not without grudging humor.
"Everyone's clear on what they're doing?"
Both Ned and Wong nodded. Ned took a deep breath and checked his phone nervously. “He'll be here soon. You're sure he can't eavesdrop now, right?”
“If he's trying, he hears only a discussion about Ben & Jerrys ice cream. Fool us twice, shame on us,” Wong said dryly. “But it's better that he doesn't see you.” The sorcerer waved open a local portal that appeared to cut into a park. “I'll get you once he's gone.”
Stepping towards the portal, keeping careful distance from the spell's razor-sharp edges, Ned looked back at Peter. “Good luck,” he said with rare solemnity.
“You too, Ned.”
With a small wave, Ned walked forward and the golden gate fizzled shut behind him.
Peter took a deep breath. Wong looked at him askance, then squared his shoulders to the door. “How did you predict—?”
“Have you ever seen Inception?” Peter asked him.
“How many of your ideas come from movies?”
“Oh,” Peter blew out a breath, “probably too many of them.”
His hand started glitching, as though his atoms were testing the waters. He shoved it into the pocket of his coat but Wong missed nothing, and turned his concerned frown forward. Too late to change course.
The difficulties of this plan weren't lost on him. Now, in one of the first quiet moments since he'd kicked open the aquarium, doubts closed in. It was every bit as precarious a leap of faith as Wong feared. He'd always been a good Spider-Man—if not a great Peter Parker—but he'd messed up before, too; what made him so determined now?
Well, like he told Miles: that last little bit of time before everything went to crap was where he did his best work. And things were, inarguably, getting there.
A shadow fell over the glass in the doorway.
In his mind's eye Peter saw Miles, hyperventilating, fading in and out of invisibility in sheer panic as his uncle's shadow passed over the windows of May Parker's house like a wraith; afraid, for the first time in his life, of the family he'd always loved. Though it had happened mere days ago, it felt a much longer time.
Unenthusiastic about admitting the man to this place of ancient study, Wong made a stiff gesture and the door opened.
In stepped the Prowler, wearing his heavy armor and his hood, drawing a curious look from a woman walking her terrier. The door shut behind him.
It felt odd for an enemy to cross the threshold here, like the very nature of the Sanctum should repel him. Drawing to a stop, Prowler looked between the two men standing silently before him and said, in a low, heavily filtered growl, “Let's get this over with.”
“Fine,” said Peter, exhaling.
Reconciling the masked villain who'd balked at harming Spider-Man with the same man who'd given up the kid's identity to Kingpin was difficult. Where did this man draw the line?
Both of them faced the sorcerer, who nodded and drew forward with obvious resignation.
“Oh, that reminds me.” Wong drew his hands from his sleeves and stretched one out to Peter. “One of your hairs, please.”
Peter blinked at him. “Uh, okay—taken from the root, or—?”
“Any length will do. It’s not a drug test,” said Wong with a trace of amusement.
Peter plucked out a hair. One of the gray ones, he hoped—he had too many of those as it was.
Wong took the strand of hair, which glowed brightly and folded into the larger circle that the sorcerer now sketched in the air, face tight with concentration. The Prowler's mask was impassive but he had to be impressed at the sparking gold spell that cut a swath through the fabric of this world to reach another. Wong stood back and all three men gazed at the portal.
Beyond it, Peter saw his dimension. The one he'd been trying to reach for—how long had it been, now? And now, astonishingly, he wasn't too happy to see it.
Clearly the Prowler was waiting for him to go first.
“Well,” Peter muttered, “let's get to it.”
And he stepped through.