what comes before
Buildings don’t fall over easily in New York. Not since 9/11, and certainly not since the Battle. But in an all-too-familiar act of Ned distracting other students while Peter sneaks out of their moving bus, the city is reminded of how little can be done for a collapsing tower.
He arrives downtown to purple car fires and the sounds of shots. The ground shakes beneath him.
“What happened here?” Peter whispers to himself. He stands in shock, twisting around to survey the scene. An instant later, Iron Man flies overhead, racing towards the skyscraper falling to its knees. The top of the building is missing, with the upper two-thirds leaning at a 45-degree angle. Flames seem to engulf what’s standing.
Peter thwips out a web, yanking himself along Tony’s trail. “Mr. Stark!” he shouts, hoping to get his attention. A beam of purple energy shoots from the antenna of a neighboring building and into the clouded sky. The world feels dark suddenly, save for this light. He swings on.
Mr. Stark turns too many corners and Peter loses him, but it’s not hard to guess where he’s going. There’s a tower collapsing.
He skids to a stop in the intersection below the building, horrified and amazed as Captain America is hit with falling debris as he runs from the building’s lobby doors, still managing to shield the young man in his arms. Peter forces his panic to fall away. Right now, he needs to be Spider-Man, not a sixteen-year-old kid. Right now, he needs to be fearless.
He launches himself into the skyrise, searching for anybody. When he lands in the middle of a cubicle, Peter hones in on his hearing. Alarms pierce his eardrums, but he desperately shifts past the extraneous noise. There are people trapped two floors up.
The stairwell is blocked, so he punches out the glass of the windows. Flaming debris flies by and he feels the tower begin to break apart again. Peter begins to crawl up the overhang.
When he reaches the floor, he catapults himself inside and over the raging fire. Quick feet land him by the restrooms, where a few women can be heard. He darts in.
The two women in pantsuits have turned on all of the sink faucets and are desperately trying to splash water on the fires out past the tile of the bathroom. Their faces are red and weary and one of them looks as if she’s been coughing a lung out. Peter doesn’t think; he just acts.
After an unparalleled rescue mission of web-slinging and web-wrapping, he manages to bring them both down to ground level and push them towards authorities. Cap stands at the forefront of a police barrier, his face scrunched and afraid but he doesn’t move. The top half of the tower leans too far. As part of the skyscraper falls in on itself, the rest of it topples over. In an instant, the streets are swept with a blast of smoky, ashy air heated from hell itself. The crowds are far enough to get on without damage.
Iron Man clangs down to the pavement next to Peter. Captain Rogers looks over, his face solemn. Natasha and Clint appear out of nowhere. “This fight has not ended,” Mr. Stark begins, the mask revealing his dirty face. “That purple light, the purple fire—this isn’t Earthly. Call up. We need every hand.”
A booming voice resounds from the top of a neighboring tower—Avengers Tower. Or, what used to be their Avengers Tower. The five of them turn and look for a moment, until Tony asks for their attention. “We take this on together. FRIDAY’s working on getting Fury. Wait until there’s more of you. I’ll keep this guy busy.” The helmet of the Iron Man suit locks down over Tony’s face before he turns and propels himself off. There’s not a moment to even debate with him.
Peter still tries to.
“Mr. Stark!” he screams, shooting himself off into the sky, too. He hears Nat and Cap call him back, but he’s deaf to their demands. He can’t just let this old guy fight off some alien whatever all by himself. What kind of self-sacrificing—
Thanos? No. Can’t. He—no. God, no.
But it’s all Peter can focus on when he gets up to the rooftop. There, in the flesh, is his fear manifested. His heart pauses for a moment at the sight.
Tony doesn’t seem to care. He’s not even in the suit. No, instead, he’s got on sweatpants and a shirt and absolutely no protection. Mr. Stark doesn’t look afraid—he looks angry. He looks lost.
Peter opens his mouth to ask if everyone made it out of the building until he realizes Mr. Stark can’t be bothered with that right now. The guy is standing defenseless in front of the ugliest looking Thanos-sized man-monster he’s ever seen. Even the thing’s tough blue skin is almost vomit-inducing.
Thanos. Suffocation and isolation and caging and fear and losing hope and-
No. Breathe, Spider-Man.
Peter stays at the edge of the roof so Mr. Stark won’t see him. His mind urges him to grab the man and swing off the roof, away from this titan-thing, but logic suppresses these thoughts.
“Earth is not for the taking, Papa Smurf,” Mr. Stark barks. “Now, if you and your droids could kindly go back to wherever you came from, I think we’ll all be better off.”
The titan smiles wickedly. “You’re a bit too late, Stark. I’ve left them hungry, and you two certainly seem appetizing for a first taste.”
“Two?” Mr. Stark says, confusion knocking him back. He starts to turn towards Peter. “What are you—fucking hell.” Peter freezes. He just wanted to be available in case Mr. Stark needed backup. He didn’t mean to be in the confrontation.
The man-monster capitalizes on Mr. Stark’s diverted attention, shooting him in the back with a short burst of purple fire from the gauntlet on his wrist. Peter darts forward in an attempt to catch Tony as he’s thrown forward in a seemingly-endless somersault. He barely hears the blue man laugh darkly and demand “Get them” over his frantic scramble to get Mr. Stark into his suit.
Mr. Stark isn’t conscious, however, and he can’t get him in properly. The droids are approaching too fast.
He lays Mr. Stark on the ground and begins shaking him, calling desperately for him to wake up. As a single eyelid begins to fall open, a blast of fire catches the Iron Man suit and Peter ducks. He hops up into a fighting stance, hoping he can hold them off while Tony gets himself together and into his armor.
“Should I activate Instant Kill Mode?” Karen asks over the speakers in Peter’s suit.
“Karen!” he says. “I thought we talked about this.”
“This is a different situation. It felt appropriate.”
“Well, they’re metal, yeah? Let’s go with taser webs. Maybe we can short out their circuits.”
“Activating the ‘Y2K Bug’ Protocol.” Peter breathes deeply once more before launching himself at the closest machine. He throws out webs as fast as his shooters can string them together, simultaneously deactivating droids and chucking them off the roof.
“On your left, Spider-Man!” he hears Mr. Stark shout from behind him, but he turns too late. The beam knocks him straight in the chest and sends him flying. His heel catches the pavement and he tumbles, rolling backwards and sideways until his head smashes painfully against the ledge at the edge of the roof and then lolls to the right. His body goes limp.
Not even Tony—a suit-less, burned, desperate Tony—can stop them from yanking Peter up and pressing one of their blasters against the side of his drooping head.
“On your knees, Stark,” the titan demands. “Any other movement, I vaporize him.” Tony hesitates, racing to figure out a solution where they both come out unscathed, but he can’t. He can’t get any tech without killing Peter. “On your knees!” he shouts again, and Tony drops, defeated.
“Grab him.”
He has to let them, and he hates himself for it. Metal clangs against the side of his head and he falls over.
God, he hates himself.