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chapter eleven
MISTAKES WERE MADE
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BECK LEAVES A TRAIL of green in his wake. The area where he'd slammed through the beast is made visible by the neon green puncturing its chest, the man inside nowhere to be seen. The Elemental comes screeching to a halt and falters for a moment as if assessing the damage done to itself. Then it collapses onto its knees with an agonized cry, reaching toward the heavens as Beck's powers smother it, transforming every leaping ember to a dazzling emerald-tone. Then it falls forward, disappearing in a blast of green so strong it nearly knocks the three teenagers from their feet. Emerald-toned glitter hangs in the air. It's beautiful, almost picturesque, but the situation is too dire to dwell on the display of power.

Lena gasps as the Ferris wheel creaks dangerously from behind them, but Peter informs her, his voice so quiet and thin she can barely hear him, "Don't worry. I secured it with webs. It should be fine."

"Look." Graham points to the place where Beck's motionless body lies in the middle of a decently-sized crater.

Peter darts forward first. Lena, still in a bit of shock, follows him after yanking the web from her back. Graham is the last to move, his long legs helping him easily catch up to Lena.

"Mr. Beck?" Peter questions fearfully, turning the immobile man over onto his back. Lena's chest is tight with terror until she sees him move, his face beet-red from strain and sweat covering every inch of his skin.

The three teenagers each help him to his feet. Beck heaves a pained groan, a gloved hand pressed to the side of his golden chest plate, and motions toward a bit of rubble. They ease him down onto it carefully. Lena batters out a small flame that had been slowly burning a hole into his maroon cape. They step back to give him some space, moving as one unit, a team.

She looks up at the sound of footsteps. Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and Dmitri emerge from their cars, which they had just parked on the side of the plaza. While Maria and Dmitri hang back, Fury approaches them with an unreadable expression on his scarred face– a trademark for him.

"So it's over?" Maria questions.

"That was the last of them," Beck confirms with a hint of relief in his voice.

"But not the last threat we'll ever face," Fury says. "We need to stay vigilant. There's a void in this world for someone like you. Hill and I are going to Europol headquarters in Berlin tomorrow; you should join us."

Beck pushes himself to his feet and shakes the former director's hand. "Thank you. I might just take you up on that."

Next, Fury turns to where Graham, Lena, and Peter stand off to the side. His expression hardens, becoming less than welcoming, and Lena realizes that the invitation is not going to extend to them. Peter seems to realize it, too. His goggles are lifted up to expose his teary eyes, red-rimmed from shock or something else, she can't tell. His entire body tenses as Fury takes several steps closer until he's directly in front of them. Graham squares his shoulders as if bracing himself for what's to come.

"You three have gifts, but you didn't want to be here."

"Mr. Fury, I—" Peter tries to say, but the words get caught in his throat.

Fury continues on as if he'd never spoken. "I'd love to have you in Berlin, too, but you've got to decide whether you're going to step up or not. I know Stark was close to you. He believed in you— chose you." He aims his eye at Peter on that last part. "He made you Avengers. I need that. The world needs that. Maybe Stark was wrong." He tilts his head to the side, and Lena can't help but feel like the action is a bit condescending. "Was he?"

Peter stays silent, his eyes still brimming with tears, while Lena's mouth opens as if she wants to speak. No words come out. She isn't sure what she can say. Fury is right — they hadn't wanted to be here, and going to Berlin would mean abandoning the trip and saying yes to something she isn't sure they're ready for.

They're not like Captain America or Iron Man. They weren't adults when they decided to help change the world. They're just kids trying to make it through high school, and then college, and then they can dedicate however much of their lives they want to being superheroes. But for now... Lena wants to graduate and get a degree. She can't save the world forever. And in the event that something happens to her where she can't fight crime anymore, she wants to have a security blanket to fall back on. She won't get that if she drops out of high school right now.

As Fury turns his back on them, Graham mutters to himself, "I'm an Avenger?"

Lena elbows him in the side. "Not now."

The plaza is still on fire. Scattered flames pour more smoke into the air, further smothering the area with heat, making Lena sweat even more underneath her suit. She wants nothing more than to take her mask off and let the area around her eyes breathe, but she has to wait until it's safe to do so.

She glances around. The Elemental had caused so much destruction. The carousel is beyond repair, the Ferris wheel is still tilting dangerously, and the buildings forming the square have craters in them. But there are some things that Lena can tell they had caused. A few things in the surrounding area are melted not from the Elemental, but from her powers— she can see remnants of blue on them. The fire hydrant that Peter had broken is lying somewhere on the ground. Those rocks they'd thrown had broken into smaller pieces and scattered themselves on the pavement. Some windows are smashed. A night that was supposed to be full of fun and festivities had been ruined for the civilians.

Even though they'd won the battle, Lena can't find it in her to be very happy about it.

Beck notices their distraught expressions and hobbles closer to them with a sympathetic expression on his bearded face. A few strands of sweat-soaked hair fall over his forehead as he squeezes each of their shoulders in turn, even patting Lena on the head and ruffling her silver wig a little.

"Let's get a drink," he says before walking off.

Peter turns to watch him go. "We're not twenty-one."

"The drinking age is eighteen here," Lena reminds him in a gravelly voice.

"Well, we're not that, either," Graham says.

Beck lifts a gloved hand to wave them along. "Come on, kids. We can order you some juice or something."

The trio exchanges looks. Finally, Lena steps forward first, following after Beck's swishing cape with the eyes of Fury, Maria, and Dmitri staring into her back. She reaches down and deactivates the voice changer at her hip as she walks. Quickly, the boys catch up to her and they all join Beck's side, making for an interesting group walking through the now-deserted streets of Prague.

"Uh, Beck?" Graham speaks up. He must have switched his voice changer off as well, because he sounds normal again. "Is it safe for us to be going out in these costumes?"

"Don't worry, Graham," Beck replies nonchalantly. "We'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" Lena asks, eyeing Peter's silent figure trailing alongside her like a kicked puppy. "I mean, Peter can't drink anything with that thing over his head."

"And there are only so many shadows I can hide in at once before I start to get tired."

Beck smiles, his teeth a flash in the dim lights on either side of the vacant street. "I already checked out the bar we're going to. The people inside are friends."

"Okay," Lena says unsurely. She isn't used to taking off her mask until she's sure nobody else can see her. But if Beck is comfortable around the people in the bar, she supposes she can be, as well.

The contrast to how lively the city had been before the carnival versus now is laughingly apparent. All of the decorations and string lights seem like a slap in the face, a child's hope squashed in the wake of disaster. Lena's gut twists at the sight of them. How could they have put so many people in danger tonight? Why didn't they just form a blockade?

Maybe Stark was wrong. Was he?

Tony would have thought of the blockade.

She shakes her head with a huff. She can't keep focusing on the negatives of that battle or Fury's words are going to eat her alive. Graham had gotten all the civilians — including his own brothers — out of harm's way. There was destruction, yes, but no casualties, and they'd stopped the Elemental before it could get powerful enough to destroy the world. Not everything turned out poorly.

"Here we are," Beck announces. Lena hadn't realized that they've indeed walked right up to a small pub on a street corner. The older man opens the door for them, allowing them to step inside before him.

Graham walks in first. Lena follows next, tailed by Peter, who is clutching his backpack. She has no idea when he'd retrieved it, but it must have been while she was trapped in her daze. Maybe they'd passed the place where he and Graham had hidden it.

The inside of the pub is dimly lit and cozy, which isn't what Lena would have expected. Then again, she's only ever seen them on television and never stepped foot in one herself. Several tables line the rectangular windows on either side of the door, a few of them filled with people who are speaking in hushed tones. Only two other people sit at the bar — a man and a woman on the left and right halves, sitting alone. A large tower of bottles stands in the center of the square-shaped bar. The light glinting off of them casts an almost amber glow around the small room, bathing everyone's skin in a warm light. A bartender busily cleans classes from behind the counter.

Beck chuckles when they all stop directly in front of the door. "Come on, guys, this place won't kill you. Here, I'll sit first."

He does. Nobody pays him any mind when a man dressed in a cape and golden armor sits at the bar, which gives Lena the cue to slowly follow. As Beck removes his cape and drapes it over the stool to his left, Peter climbs onto the one to his right. Lena sits next to him, and finally, Graham takes the last unoccupied seat on the front end of the bar. Peter sets his bag down near his feet and stares glumly at the counter.

The bartender, a tall, wiry man who looks bored, comes to take their orders. Beck asks for a beer. When the bartender looks at the three teenagers, his brow furrows. His mouth opens as if to ask for their IDs, but Peter mumbles, "Do you have lemonade?"

The bartender blinks for a moment, then nods. Lena and Graham order the same thing. When their drinks arrive moments later, the bartender merely looks a bit confused— probably because of the fact that they're all still wearing their full superhero costumes.

"Guys, you can take them off," Beck says softly. "Look around— nobody cares about us, but they might start thinking that Peter is going to rob this place."

Lena manages to lift her lips in a tiny grin at his joke. She removes her mask from around her eyes, sighing as the cool air inside the bar welcomes the sweating skin that had been covered by it. She grabs Peter's backpack and tucks it inside, deciding to keep her wig on because she doesn't want to be bothered with removing her hairnet and trying to tame her bangs right now.

Graham copies her action, removing his own mask and putting it inside Peter's bag. The shadows surrounding him disappear. In the end, Peter also tugs the sock-type-thing off of his head, chucking it in his backpack much more carelessly than they had. His skin is still tinted red from the heat and strain of the battle, but it begins to level out once he starts sucking down his lemonade like his life depends on it.

Beck points to him in a wordless question, his confused eyes shifting from Lena to Graham. Both of them shrug over the sounds of Peter slurping through the straw. He only stops once his entire glass is empty, waving a hand toward the bartender and asking, "Can I have another, please?"

Once that one comes, he continues doing the same thing for about two seconds before Lena interrupts by trying to push him away by the forehead and saying, "You're either gonna suffocate or get a brain freeze. Slow down."

"Wanna bet on which one happens first?" Graham asks jokingly, but she can tell by his voice that his heart isn't really in it. His lemonade is untouched.

"Hey," Beck says, clapping Peter on the shoulder. The boy nearly chokes, quickly recovering and pulling away from the blue straw to look at the man. "You gotta celebrate. You did something good tonight."

"Yeah..." Peter trails off, sounding unconvinced. Lena takes a sip of her own drink through her straw and watches as he pinches the bridge of his nose uncomfortably. "Fury was right. Tony did a lot for us, so... well, I feel like I owe it to him, to everybody."

Beck sets his beer bottle on the counter, watching as Lena nods along in agreement. "Do you?"

"Yeah." Peter traps the glass between his palms, moving them back and forth so it rotates on the surface. "I mean... Mr. Stark gave Lena and I the chance to be more — he wanted me to be better than him — and Fury just wants us to live up to that."

Lena recalls that day on the rooftop after they had nearly sunk an entire ferry. She had felt like such an outsider in the argument between Tony and Peter, having sat on the sidelines for the entire time, feeling insignificant because she hadn't thought Tony cared about her. But he did. That's evident by the fact that he'd shown up to her house a few days later with a file on her parents and her brief time in SHIELD headquarters, then created a scholarship to help her get into Cornell.

Graham nods along thoughtfully. "I mean, I didn't really have a heart-to-heart with Tony, but I always knew he was watching out for us wherever we went to fight crime. I'd hate for him to be watching us now and feel disappointed. I guess, however much it hurts, Fury is just protecting his legacy."

"What do you want?" Beck asks.

Peter looks up at him. "What do you mean?"

"What do you want?"

He laughs nervously, confusion in his tone. "I don't know."

"What do you want? You, Peter Parker, Lena Santos, Graham Seager, right now? I know you're thinking about it. What—?"

"I wanna go back on my trip, right?" Peter bursts out, finally straightening up and looking Beck in the eye. "I wanna go back on my trip with my friends and enjoy the summer I was supposed to have."

As he speaks, Lena feels his left hand brushing her own. She takes it, entwining their fingers and setting their hands on the counter. Graham playfully rolls his eyes at the display of affection, fiddling with his straw.

Beck catches sight of their hands, a smile tugging up the side of his mouth. "Okay, good. What about you, Lena?"

Lena blows air out of the corner of her mouth. "I want to go on my trip, yeah. I want to not have to think about being anyone other than Lena for the rest of the week. I want to make sure that my parents' money wasn't wasted on this trip and I can actually enjoy it. Also, I still want to go to Paris."

"I don't blame you," Beck says with a grin still pulling up his lips. "On my Earth, it was beautiful. Graham?"

"What is this, group counseling?" he questions sarcastically. Lena knows that's a survival tactic— a way for him to close himself off when he isn't ready to open up to someone. At Beck's pointed expression, he heaves a sigh. "Honestly, I just want to go to sleep."

"Valid. Today's battle was rough."

Lena casts a questioning glance at Graham. However, she notices him staring intently at something on the counter and tries to follow his gaze, only to find nothing but their glasses of lemonade and her and Peter's hands. His expression is more focused than she's seen it in a while, his dark skin wrinkled with frown lines as he pulls his lips downward.

"I gotta use the restroom," Graham says, then gulps his entire drink before sliding out of his seat. "Post-battle bathroom break, you know?"

The bartender points around the corner. Graham thanks him before heading in that direction without another word or backward glance. Lena and Peter watch him go in mute confusion before Beck breaks the silence.

"Lena, how long have you and Graham been friends?"

"Since kindergarten," she replies, turning to face the older man. "Why?"

"Well, it's just — how do I put this? — I'm not used to him... being on our side."

Peter goes completely still. "Are you suggesting he's a bad guy?"

Beck raises his hands in innocence, his expression calm. "Not on this Earth, no, but..." He lowers his voice, making Lena have to lean closer to hear him. "In my dimension, he caused mass destruction with this group of supervillains known as the Sinister Six. Forgive me, but it's just hard to shake some of the things I saw."

"I trust him with my life," Lena says instantly. There's no doubt in her mind, no hint of anything about Beck's words that can change her mind. Whatever Graham had done on Beck's Earth isn't who he is here.

"Lena, he tried to kill you," Beck tells her. "He only failed because of you and your brother's combined efforts."

Peter swallows, then creases his brows once he processes the information, his head snapping to look at Lena. "Your broth—"

Lena cuts him off, not wanting to discuss this here or now, and also wanting Beck to stop talking. "Graham is on our side. There's not a shred of me that doesn't believe that."

Beck nods, finally conceding. "Okay. If you trust him, then so do I."

A woman approaches them and picks something up off of the floor. When she hands it to Peter, mumbling something Lena can't understand, she realizes that the EDITH glasses had fallen out of his backpack. He takes them with a grateful exclamation of, "Oh my God, thank you so much."

"What are those?" Beck questions, his thick brows furrowing. "Are those the—"

"EDITH glasses, yeah," Peter confirms with a relieved smile.

"They were just on the floor?"

Lena raises her eyebrows as if to say, He's got a point, and takes a meaningful sip of her lemonade. Peter releases her hand to hold the glasses properly, looking between them and the man beside him with a panicked expression.

"Try them on," Beck says instead of reprimanding him. "Let's see how they look on you."

"Yeah?" Peter asks.

"Yeah."

He slides the slightly-tinted, square-shaped glasses onto his face and turns toward Beck, who blinks at him with a vacant expression.

"I actually really like them," Peter says.

He spins 180 degrees to look at Lena next, leaning his elbow on the counter in a dramatic pose. Lena glances up at his face and immediately chokes on her lemonade from laughter, pulling away from her straw to wipe the liquid from her chin. She tries to stifle her giggles with her hand, but her eyes can't hide their amusement.

While Tony's face had been longer to support the large size of the lenses, Peter's small facial structure makes the frames seem oversized. He almost looks like a bug.

"Can I be completely honest with you?" Beck asks.

Peter turns back around, ignoring Lena's laughter for what he thinks will be a more positive response. "Please."

"They look really stupid."

"Oh."

Noticing Peter's disappointment, Beck quickly tries to recover with, "But maybe they have a contact lens version of them," and shrugs animatedly.

"Here, you try them on," Peter says, sliding the glasses off of his face and holding them out to the man.

Beck stares at them for a moment before breaking into laughter, clearly thinking it's a joke. "No, c'mon."

"Put 'em on!"

"I don't wanna — I don't wanna try them on!"

After looking at Peter's pleading face and getting a nod of approval from Lena, who steers clear of her lemonade to prevent any future choking incidents, he surrenders with a sigh and takes them from Peter. Beck slides them onto his face with one hand. His eyebrows raise as he looks at them, asking, "What do you think, kids?"

Both of them deflate like balloons. With the slightly windswept style of his brunet hair, the beard covering his jaw, and the structure of his face, he looks so much like Tony that the air is knocked out of Lena's chest. If his hair had been a few shades darker along with his eyes, and his beard had been more sharply trimmed, Lena could have imagined it was him instead of Beck. Sitting there with them. Laughing with them. It's like seeing his face one last time.

Lena's heart pinches so sharply that she has to look away and stare at her glass of lemonade instead. Her jaw rotates, clicking slightly as she moves it to the side and back into place.

Peter mumbles something incoherently to himself. Then he says it louder. "'For the next Tony Stark, I trust you.'"

"What?" Beck asks, voicing Lena's exact thoughts.

"Mr. Stark left me a message with those glasses: 'For the next Tony Stark, I trust you.'"

"I'm still not following. How many lemonades have you had?"

"He knew every mistake I ever made, okay?" Peter says, gaining confidence with every word. "He must have known that I was not ready for something like this."

Beck's brow furrows. "Why would he give it to you?"

"Peter—"Lena tries to warn him, about to tell him to slow down, but he hurries on, spurred by a notion that he seems almost high on.

"Because maybe he didn't trust me to have EDITH, he just trusted me to pick who should. It makes so much more sense— he always knew I would do what's right, and he's not gonna give them to Fury because Fury would just give himself EDITH."

Beck nods his agreement. "Alright, you're probably right about that."

"Right, so, the world needs the next Iron Man... " Peter pauses before speaking the words, seeming a thousand times lighter than when he'd walked into the bar, "and it's not gonna be me. I mean, I'm a sixteen-year-old kid from Queens. It needs to be an adult with some experience and that's good like Tony Stark, like you."

"Peter, slow down," Lena advises. She thinks she's going to get whiplash if this conversation moves any faster. "Think this through, okay?"

Graham returns from the bathroom, briefly surveying the scene at the bar before wrinkling his brow. "What's going on?"

"No, Peter, come on," Beck says instead of explaining, removing the glasses and handing them back. "No."

Peter takes them and puts them back on his face. "EDITH? Hi, yeah, um, I'd like to transfer your control over to Quentin Beck."

"Woah, what—?" Graham asks, cutting himself off due to his own shock.

"Peter, what are you doing?" Beck inquires.

Lena places a warning hand on Peter's shoulder. "Think about this."

"I am. I'm doing the right thing."

"Stark gave you the glasses!" Beck exclaims.

"Stark gave me a choice!" Peter fights back. "It's my choice to make, okay, and I'm gonna make it. Look, you're a soldier. A leader. You stopped the Elementals, you saved our lives, you saved the world, okay? He'd want you to have them." He pauses, presumably listening to something EDITH says before saying, "Confirm."

Lena opens her mouth, unsure of what to even say, and glances back at a completely shell-shocked Graham. He looks equally at a loss for words. His mouth hangs slightly open, his dark eyes widened to the size of saucers.

"Welcome to the Avengers," Peter says as he holds out the glasses.

Beck hesitantly reaches out and accepts them, sliding them back onto his face. Lena sucks in a breath but forces herself not to avert her gaze.

"They look good on you," Peter says with a shrug.

Beck reaches forward and clasps his hand. "Thank you. It's an honor."

"Yeah." He stands from the barstool, reaching down to sling his bag over one shoulder, and smiles. "Mr. Stark would have really liked you."

"I guess we're leaving?" Graham mutters. Lena shrugs, mimicking Peter's movement and getting to her feet.

"Where you headed?" Beck asks.

"Back to the hotel," Peter answers. "Gotta get back before our teacher tries to call our relatives and reports us missing to the police, so..."

The man chuckles, reaching out to shake Lena and Graham's hands as well. "Well, you kids don't stay up too late. You've earned a good night's rest. Enjoy the rest of your trip."

"Thank you," Lena says, her polite side overpowering the shock still traveling through her body.

"Yeah, thanks, man." Peter starts to head toward the door with a wave. "See ya."

"See ya," Beck says, waving as well.

Peter leads them out of the pub, pushing open the door and bringing them into the humid night air.

_________

a/n:

i remember sitting in the theater when peter left and everything was revealed to be holograms like

honestly i wasn't surprised. i knew that mysterio was a supervillain in the comics (literally part of the sinister six— congrats if you caught that reference!) and no amount of marvel saying "yeah he's a good guy now!!" could make me believe that, especially since the elementals were such shallow villains and i knew that peter's problems couldn't be solved halfway through the movie.

rewatching this scene after seeing the blooper reel is so funny. i just keep thinking of "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOUR WHOLE BODY'S MOVING" and when tom couldn't stop laughing so he just ran away.

this chapter was mostly dialogue but EVERYTHING was super important. i hope you were paying attention👀 the next chapter will.... not be fun! but then again, when is anything for these poor kids?

as i said before at the beginning of this book, i'm trying not to just constantly replace mj with lena, so she will still have a role in this fic and yes, she does still have the projector. it will just be a matter of switching things up since peter doesn't have a crush on her.

—kristyn