03 || a dance with death

"HELL SEEMS A LOT WORSE THAN THIS."
- Q Ship, Space, April 2018-

Alison's body was screaming.

The darkness around her swarmed her vision, and the fact that she had no clue what was going on was excruciating- both for her mind and for her physically. She was trying to catch up with everything that she had missed, filling in the gaps in the places her mind could not supply her at the moment. The last thing that she had remembered was calling the attention of Maw-Squidward Face-Whatever he was- and then there was black.

But now, it was like pins and needles were stabbing her, and sharply. It was like someone was cutting away at her, and she could do nothing in the pitch dark void that she was in.

Suddenly coming to consciousness, the girl felt the same feeling that she was on fire, like a thousand needles were pricking her skin. She was floating, suspended in a position that wouldn't allow her to move. God, this was not an experience that she wanted to be in at all. Another sharp pain made her eyes jolt open, looking up to see the Squidward man in front of her, smirking as he stared her down.

"Interesting." The alien observed, looking at the microsurgery needles piercing the girl's skin with a sort of fascination that made Alison's stomach churn. Her face was twitching involuntarily as he inspected what was going on, the teenager trying to contain all of the painful stings and pricks that were spotting all over her body. "You don't seem to be taking it as badly as the Stonekeeper."

"Maybe that's cause you're going easy on me." Alison challenged, a smirk coming to her face. She knew it was a poor idea to poke the beast, but at this point, challenging the alien in front of her with quips and humor to mask her fear was her only option she could see working out for her. Taking a moment to lift her head, her smirk still stayed plastered on her face as she spat blood that had been forming at the edge of her lip from a cut onto the alien's own face. "Too afraid to hurt me?"

Wiping the spit off of his face in disgust in an almost graceful manner, as if there was some honor to what he was doing, Maw flicked some of his fingers, more needles coming to target the girl's skin, the pain slowly piercing her body, the waves of pain crashing like the waves of the ocean, coming and going with a fury she had never felt before. Hearing a cry of pain from the girl finally erupt from her lips, the alien smiled in satisfaction. "On the contrary, I'm just getting started."

Pausing for a moment, her lips pursued, Alison tried to conceal the pain from her face, attempting to still find some hope, some way out of the situation. What could she focus on? Peter. Peter had to know where she was, that she got taken- right? And Tony- they would both know that she had been taken and come for her. "You know, they're going to find me. They're going to find me and Strange and they're going to-" Alison stopped, crying out in pain as a microsurgery needle struck her spine.

Pain blossomed through the bones of her body, rattling the girl to the core. She felt like she was being burned alive, every nerve pricking up and screaming with agony. The pain made her want to collapse under the pressure, everything seemingly blurry. As one of the needles dug deeper into her skin just below her shoulder blade, Alison let out a deeper cry of pain, her insides on fire. She just wanted the pain to stop- to be fixed in all of this. It wasn't like a bandaid or a slash to the face, in which you could feel the stinging pain and rip it off in an instant, this pain was withstanding and had no mercy. 

"Stop me? I hardly believe that, and neither should you, Miss Marnell." The alien scoffed, moving from his position in front of her to her side, observing the microsurgery needles millimeters away from her body. "Reacting so badly to the needle over your spine? Have you had an injury there before, perhaps?" Maw wondered, walking around her in fascination. Pricking one of the needles close to her spine, willing it to go closer, Ebony Maw smirked in satisfaction as the girl winced at his very movement, the mere thought of the pure pain enough to terrify her. "No one's ever healed from an injury like that before."

"Go. To. Hell." Alison spat in between heaving breaths, the world becoming blurrier and blurrier with every passing moment. She couldn't feel her legs anymore, the numbness she felt after falling in D.C. returning with a bitter passion. It made her want to collapse, to let herself fall and stay there on the ground. But she couldn't do anything of the sort,  pain only continuing as she hung in almost zero gravity, her muscles straining against the pure fury of her screaming nerves.

"You humans and your petty love of words that insult others." Ebony Maw commented, his face shriveling up again in disgust and displeasure. It was obvious from the way he moved that he saw humans as lesser thans, scum of the earth that could do nothing right. "I never understood why your race is so fascinated by insulting each other, when it does nothing in the end. Real pain, that comes when you torture someone. Hurt then until they can't do anything but scream."

"You're sick." The girl spat, heaving her words through waves of pain. "You're vile, and I can't wait for someone to give you what you deserve-" Alison started, the pain causing her to scream again, the noise finally echoing through the ship. She couldn't finish her sentence, the words coming to mind but not coming out because of the pain. She could feel another needle, striking another point, this time more above her on her upper back.

"Like your pesky little Avengers friends to come and save you?" The alien offered, laughing with a cold tone at her thought. Dismissing the very idea with a wave of his hand, an almost overconfident glint coming to his beady black eyes. "They won't be able to find you by the time I'm through with you. You'll be dead, with no hope of rescue."

Before she could say anything, before she could even question what he even meant by that, Alison felt a sharp stabbing sensation in her left side of her stomach. It felt like a cold clean slice throughout her entire body, the warmth that was contained inside of her slowly seeping away, pain blossoming from that spot in a way that Alison had never felt before. The needles retracted away from her skin, the only pain being the stinging leftover from the needles and the now throbbing pain in her left side of her stomach area.

Daring to look down, the girl saw a large needle-like shard through the left side of her stomach area, the shard sticking out of the other side of her body. The shard glittered with her blood, the crimson liquid shining in the dim light of the spaceship. Alison looked up at the alien, trying to let some remark out of her mouth, but only a cough of blood flew out.

The blood was bright red, something that Peter had taught her meant nothing good, the boy learning that from his aunt when she had insisted that if he continue patrolling he would have to know basic first aid. The blood was red the blood was red the blood was red the blood was red- and Alison couldn't think of anything else, the pain crippling her to only think the minimal amount.

Watching the blood droplets hit the floor, another arousement of bloody coughs coming from the girl, Maw smiled in happiness. It made Alison's stomach churn, more than it already had been, seeing her own bright scarlet blood glittering on the full grey metal of the spaceship that was soaring away from Earth. "Seems you won't be making it back home to your family after all." The alien turned his back to the girl, carefully padding away to the other side of the ship, where his next torture appointment lay hanging.

Alison, watching the alien walk away from her, felt her vision get more blurry with every step that Maw took away from her. Her eyes started to droop, the pain from the stab wound finally getting to her head, black spots dotting the edge of her eyes, and covering more of her sight with every rattling breath that she took. Submitting herself to the void, Alison finally gave up, ready to stop fighting and to finally accept what was coming for her- death.

WAITING FROM ABOVE, Tony looked down to see Strange being tortured by Maw, and the screams of another who he couldn't recognize at the moment. They sounded.... girl-like, almost as if Maw had taken another prisoner. It terrified him to think that there was another prisoner from another planet on the ship that Ebony Maw had brought down to earth, that there was someone just as helpless as Strange was in the situation he was witnessing. 

He knew that he had just sent Peter home, where he could be safe and protect Alison, especially after the chilling speech about the girl being dead that had come from Squidward-face minutes before. And Alison? He knew she was safe on the ground with Bruce. Or so he hoped- he hadn't seen her follow Peter up towards the spaceship. But no sight of the kid was better than seeing her be sucked up into the hole of the spaceship, or seeing her injured on the ground. 

Tony just had to hope in the meantime that the kid was safe. 

His eyes trained on the events occurring below him, Tony didn't even hear the fluttering of a scarlet cloak behind him, reaching out to tap his shoulder. Reacting quickly with his repulsive beam charged, he turned to see Strange's cloak standing there, without an owner.

"Wow, you're a seriously loyal piece of outerwear, aren't you?" The man asked, dropping his hand with somewhat relief.

"Yeah, uh, speaking of loyalty...." Someone trailed off, peeking up from the rafters to reveal Peter Parker, flipping down smoothly onto the ground. 

"What the.." Tony whirled around, seeing Peter Parker, donned in his new suit, hanging from the ceiling. His repulsor was facing the teenager, still up and cautious. It wasn't long until he recognized that the kid was so obviously not a threat and not listening to what had been requested of him that frustration began to blossom in his expression. 

"I know what you're gonna say." Peter started, his mask quickly coming off with its nano-tech like features. His palms were facing Tony, as to deflect any sort of worry or attack that would come from him.

"You should not be here." Tony pointed at Peter with an exasperated and concerned look, realizing that Peter and Alison weren't as safe as he thought they were. He was absolutely screwed. The idea of sparing the two kids from whatever galactic major event that was occurring was going up in flames in front of him. 

"I was gonna go home." Peter protested, looking at both the cape and Tony with a pleading look, hoping that the brunt of the argument would be spared in favor of actually trying to save the world. His eyes carefully darted around, looking at his surroundings with an almost confused look, taking in everything around him while still discussing his arrival.

"I don't wanna hear it."

"But it was such a long way down and I thought of you on the way...." Peter started, ignoring Tony's request to not give any excuses.

"And now I gotta hear it."

"..and I kinda stuck to the side of the ship. And this suit is ridiculously intuitive, by the way." Peter added in, trying to soften the blow of what Tony was about to say to him. Flattery was the best way to get to Tony's ego- anyone knew that- and Peter perked up when he saw Tony's anger slightly fade. 

"God damnit." Tony whispered, looking down at the ship where Strange was still being tortured for the stone. If the kid had made it onto the ship, did it mean that Alison was here to? About to ask the kid that very question, he was interrupted from his thoughts by Peter.

"So, if anything, it's kinda your fault that I'm here." Peter finished, earning a rather shocked look from Tony and the outerwear beside him. His left hand was gesturing to Tony, an almost nervous expression on Peter's face, his lips pressed in a thin line.

"What did you just say?" Tony questioned, sounding more and more like a parent with every word that he spoke. His expression was one that looked like someone had heard something so bizarre that it was obviously false, but in a way that only a Stark could display.

"I-I take that back." Peter stammered, retracting his last statement with a nervous look on his face, hesitant to make any more mistakes. "And-And, now I'm here, in space."

"Yeah." Tony scoffed, stepping towards the junior with irritation. "Right where I didn't want you to be. This isn't Coney Island. This isn't Queens Theater. This isn't a field trip. This is a one-way ticket. You hear me? Don't pretend you thought this through." Tony added, his tone cold.

"No, I did think this through." Peter argued, looking at Tony with a challenging expression. As the man lumbered towards him, Peter tried to keep a strong face, almost faltering about his decision to come up to space.

"I know you didn't." Tony spoke over Peter shaking his head. His steps stopped, only a few feet away from the kid. "You could not have possibly though this through."

"You can't be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there's no neighborhood." Peter broke the argument, Tony finally falling silent at his words. There was a moment of silent contemplation for a second, the kid seeing Tony's confused look of bewilderment, before Peter spoke again. "Okay that didn't really make sense, but you know what I'm trying to say."

"You better hope that you're the only stowaway on this ship." Tony sighed for a moment, thinking about what he was about to do through. He was about to let a teenager drift away into space with him- without any consequences. "Come on, we got a situation."

Walking over to the edge of the rafters, Tony pointed out Strange, who wasn't by Maw anymore. Maw had probably gone off to go torture the other prisoner, so it was the perfect time to brainstorm a game plan.

"See him down there?" Tony asked, his finger pointing to Stange. "He's in trouble." Another scream from the girl that Tony still couldn't identify rang through the spaceship, this time the loudest that it had been. "And we got another hostage on the ship. What's your game plan? Go."

Peter's face went white when he heard the cry of pain from the other hostage, knowing exactly who it was in the moment. He knew that scream, because he had heard it days before when he was trying to comfort the girl who exerted it after a rather bad nightmare after falling asleep during a studying session at his apartment. It was Alison's scream. Clear as day. "That's not just another hostage, Mister Stark." He looked up at Tony, worry covering his entire face, almost like a mask. "That's Alison."

"Shit." Tony muttered, the girl's screams finally coming into recognition as Peter put the name to the voice. So much for the idea that it was just another planet's hostage, and so much for Alison and Peter to stay safe and away from the fight. "Then we need a game plan, ASAP."

Trying to focus, Peter could only think of the sci-fi movie he had forced Alison to sit down and watch with him after he found her in a wreck a few days before, the idea coming to light with the memory of the movie. "Um... okay, okay." He stood up from his squatted position, trying to disguise how pale his face was. "Okay. Have you ever seen this really old movie called Aliens?"

Maw was back to inspecting Strange, just coming back from a check on how Alison was doing- and was he satisfied with how slowly and painfully the girl was dying. It was the right way to do it, the way Absinthe would have never dared to. He had never failed Thanos, and he wouldn't fail to complete this extra (and unexpected) side mission.

"It's painful, aren't they?" The alien inspected Strange's face, watching him grunt and yelp in pain. "They were originally designed for microsurgery." There seemed to be a glint of somewhat joy in the alien's eyes as he used what could be considered the doctor's old tools against him. "And any one of them...." He paused, hearing a sound behind him.

Tony was behind the alien, holding up his palm, repulsive beam at the ready. There was a fury behind his posture, tense and rigid. He looked ready to fight, ready to do whatever it took to get Strange and Alison back.

"Could end your friend's life in an instant." Maw finished.

"I gotta tell you, he's not really my friend." Tony countered, keeping his position ready. He tried to relax his tone, pretending that there was nothing truly wrong in the situation that would make the two teenagers on board not believe him. "Saving his life is more of a professional courtesy."

Beckoning some part of the ship to come to his will, Maw's lips gave way to a smile. "But that girl.... I'm sure that she was a friend. Maybe even more? An almost daughter, perhaps? Shame she had to die, really. Bleeding out for you humans takes only a few minutes, and you're wasting  her life and your time talking with me." He paused for a moment, seeing Tony falter at the mention of Alison. "You've saved nothing. Your powers are inconsequential compared to mine."

Clearing his throat, silently noting that there was little time to stall, that Alison could be almost dead upon the ship, Tony realized that he had to act now. "Yeah, but the kid's seen more movies." He fired back, a small missile coming out of his shoulder and firing at the hull of the ship, a hole ripping through the desired area.

The force of space caused Maw to be sucked out of the ship, the balance of the whole place suddenly uneven. Strange was pulled towards the hole, his cloak acting quickly to grab hold of the doctor. The grasp wasn't enough, however, and he was catapulting towards the space hole until Peter reached out, webbing the doctor before he could fall. Trying to grasp onto anything that he could, Peter started to lose grip, until four spider legs deployed and saved Peter.

"Yes!" Peter whooped, his eyes narrowing in confusion at how he was hanging on. "Wait, what are those?" Pulling Strange back in quickly, Tony used some sort of icy substance to reseal the ship, the force of air from outside finally stopping.

Peter flew through the air, safely securing himself back on the ground in the ship, landing with almost perfect form. Standing back up, he looked over at Tony, Peter's webbing lost out of his grip, the boy losing his control of Strange's unconscious body.

"Kid, find Alison, now." Tony commanded, watching Strange thud into the ground. "From what Maw just said, she's not safe."

"On it." Peter modded, swinging back up into the rafters for a better look. Observing the other side of the ship, Peter saw Alison on the floor, a shard sticking out of her side. The girl was unmoving, a sight that worried Peter.

"Mister Stark!" Peter exclaimed, rushing down to Alison's side, landing perfectly beside her. Checking her pulse, Peter's mask flying off as he pulled up his own suit, the charm bracelet on his wrist faintly glowing with a dim light, getting dimmer with every passing second. Double tapping the charm on the bracelet, he saw her vitals, barely skimming by to keep her alive. Her heart was barely beating, her breaths barely noticeable when he put his hand to her nose to feel the small warmth from the exhale. It broke his heart, seeing Alison- no, his girlfriend-so broken after she had been through so much. "She's on the other side!"

Tony quickly flew over, seeing the girl face down on the ground. Turning her over, he saw the huge glass-like shard embedded through her stomach. As soon as the man landed, his suit shrunk back into its housing unit, Tony realizing that having a metal suit on wouldn't be helpful in this situation. His eyes widening, he tripled checked her pulse, feeling her faint heartbeat. "Okay, we need to-"

"Let me handle this." Strange sighed, walking over with his cape on his shoulders, recovered from whatever mess he had just come from. "Might you forget I used to be a doctor, I can handle this." Inspecting Alison, he saw the clean cut through her stomach, and the blood already on the floor, leaking from her wound and the droplets from where she was suspended seconds before. "Alright, we're going to have to pull out the shard, and find some sort of bandaging material. She's already lost a lot of blood, so we can't afford for her to lose any more. Normally one wouldn't advise for someone to pull out the shard, but considering that her regenerative abilities wouldn't be able to work without it removed, it's going to do her more trouble than it will help her."

"Alright, okay." Tony thought out, looking down at Peter. "I have some sort of bandaging solution built into the suit, but that means that as soon as Strange takes out the shard, we've gotta bandage her up. Pete, you've gotta hold her down so that she doesn't move when we do this."

"Okay, Okay." Peter looked down at Alison, a worried expression forming on his face. Her face was so pale, devoid of any sort of life- and it terrified him. "Mister Stark, what if I hurt her? I mean, what if-what if I hurt her even more?"

"Kid, nothing you're gonna do is gonna hurt her. If we don't do something, she's going to be in even more pain that way." Tony looked at the boy's scared eyes, afraid of hurting his girlfriend. Some part of him screamed that this wasn't right- for two kids to be scarred in such a way, but they were far past the point of worrying about the minute things. "We gotta do this."

Peter nodded, looking down at Alison once more. He watched her flinch from the movement around her, his face softening. "Let's do this." He muttered, stabilizing his hands on her shoulders. The boy wasn't sure where to hold her, but he held her steady. He didn't want to lose her- not like this. It wasn't fair, not after everything that she had been through- and after they were so close to figuring who had caused the accident, and why.

"Alright." Strange sighed, yellow gloves now on his fingers (though no one had any clue on how the doctor had even found them). His breaths unsteady, the doctor tried to calm himself- realizing that there was a life on the line. "One..." He placed his hands on the shard, causing Alison to flinch, even in her unconscious state.

"Hold her steady, Peter." Tony warned, his nanotechnology sliding to cover the finger where the bandage like tech would come out.

"Two..." Strange's hands got ready to pull, the shaking in them not as noticeable through the gloves. He was scared to do this, yes, not only because he hadn't done this in years, but also because a girl's life was on the line.

"Three." Strange pulled out the shard, throwing the bloodied object to the side. Alison jolted at the fact that the shard had been pulled out, Peter steadying her back down quickly. In an instant, Tony sprayed his nanotechnology at Alison's wound, the solution covering her entire wound within seconds.

Checking for a heartbeat, Peter found one, more steady than it had been minutes before. The glow of the bracelet grew brighter, the boy sighed in relief, almost slumping over from the amount of pure terror that he had felt. "She's okay. Unconscious, but okay."

"Great." Strange replied, the yellow and now bloodied gloves disappearing as quickly as they came. He wanted to erase any memory of what had just happened- what the three of them had just witnessed. "Now we turn this ship around."

Shaking his head, the crisis like moment when they had all worked together over, Tony walked to the other side of the ship where the controls were. "Yeah, now he wants to run. Great plan." He scoffed, trying not to look back at Alison with a guilty gaze, sort of upset at himself for throwing her on the frontlines when they should've just run in the first place. 

"No, I want to protect the stone." 

"And I want you to thank me. Now, go ahead, I'm listening." Tony fired back, continuing to walk towards the front of the ship where a galaxy like screen lay. Space, the one place that he had been afraid to explore for so long, was now in front of him, something that sent terror striking into his heart.

"For what? Nearly blasting me into space? Endangering two teenagers?" Strange scoffed, walking up to where Tony was. "Might I remind you, one of them is still barely breathing."

"I'm sorry, who just saved your magic ass?" Tony questioned, his voice raising as he spoke. "Me." 

"I seriously don't know how you fit your head into that helmet." Strange scoffed, looking at Tony with a sort of disbelief. "You endangered two kids. How is that good in any way?"

Tony went silent for a moment, one of the backs of his hand being placed over his mouth. As much as he hated to admit it, the doctor was right, and there was a deep feeling of regret that rose up inside of him as Strange called him out. "One of them was a stowaway." His excuse came out quiet. "The other-"

"You had no idea she was on this ship until that other kid mentioned it to you, did you?" Strange realized, his face furrowing into one of disappointment. "You just thought to yourself that she had just escaped this hell, that she would be okay?"

"Look, last I saw of that super speedster of a kid was when she was safe as she could be when she was chasing off an alien from another planet. And from what I told Peter about staying on the ground and protecting her, I thought she'd be okay. I didn't think-" Tony stopped, unable to say anything else. His eyes could show all of the guilt on his face, something that was uncommon for the billionaire.

Switching back to targeting Strange, Tony's eyes hardened again. The man didn't want to show his weaknesses for the kids, because he didn't have any excuses as to why this wasn't his fault. "Just admit, you should have ducked out when I told you to. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this situation. I tried to bench you, and you refused."

"Unlike everyone else in your life, I don't work for you." Strange rolled his eyes, quickly dropping his gaze to the back of the ship, where Peter was still tending to Alison, waiting for her to wake up.

"And due to that fact, we're now in a flying doughnut, billions of miles from Earth, with no backup." Tony retorted, looking at his surroundings again. The blue light from the outer area of the ship lit up his face, showing a look of annoyance and disgust plastered all over it.

"I'm backup." Peter protested from across the ship, waving his hands to get Tony's attention. His eyes were still watching Alison, although he wanted to prove his point.

"No, you're a stowaway." Tony dismissed, pointing two fingers at the boy and flitting them carelessly. "The adults are talking. Make sure that Alison's okay, kay kid? That's your job now."

"I'm sorry, I'm confused as to the relationship is here. I mean- what is he, your ward?" Strange offered up, seeing the banter between the two.

"He's a kid. That I mentor. Along with the other teenager in the back." Tony crossed his arms, his gaze falling on the two teenagers in the back. He saw Alison stirring, Peter gently sitting her up and explaining the situation.

"This ship is self-correcting its course. The thing's on autopilot." Tony noticed, gazing at the tech around him. This spaceship wasn't anything like he had seen before, but from the way that the ship was slowly moving, Tony could tell that much.

Alison sat up more quickly than she was supposed to, the faint murmurings of a conversation stirring her awake. She girl wanted to listen in on the conversation. A sharp pain rang through her stomach, the girl clutching the side of her body with a wince. "You've gotta be shitting me." She groaned, her head thudding back onto the ground as she laid back down. "I-"

"Ali, you've gotta stay down, please. I don't want you to get hurt even more than you already have." Peter pleaded, one hand placed on her shoulder as he forced her to stay back down on the floor, realizing that if she sat up it would just cause more problems that it would help anything. "You know that if you try and start-"

"Peter Benjamin Parker you better suck it up and help me stand or I swear to god I'm going to whoop your ass so hard-" Alison started to try and sit up, wincing halfway through her sentence as another pain made itself present in her body. Peter rushed to her side, trying to ease her back down. Breaking her facade of just wanting to get up and get involved in the situation, Alison glanced at Peter with the most hurt and afraid look. "Pete, it hurts." She hissed out, biting her tongue in an attempt to not cry out from the pain.

"Can we control it?" Strange asked, making the two teenagers fall silent again as the "adults" talked. "Fly us home?" There was a moment of silence as Tony casually paced the ship, eyes looking over at the kids again. They were hurt. Or, more specifically, Alison was. But that didn't mean that they couldn't try his plan and see what would happen if- "Stark." Strange asked, calling for the man's attention.

"Yeah." Tony looked at the man with an almost unknowing look. His eyes looked almost dazed, his gaze off into the distance, obviously zoned out. Thinking about something- some plan- that he wasn't willing to share her.

"Can you get us home?" Strange repeated, almost side by side with the man now. To say that the doctor was getting irritated was putting it mildly.

"Yeah, I heard you." Stark acknowledged, looking at Strange with an inside look, almost knowing something more. "I'm thinking I'm not so sure we should." His mouth quirked up his hands clasped together.

"Under no circumstances can we bring the time stone to Thanos. Hell, if we even bring Alison to Thanos that could be our doom." Strange thought out, looking at Tony with a warning look.

"Why Alison?" Tony questioned, not getting an answer from the man. Strange just gave him a look that a parent would give their kid when they weren't comprehending something. Like Tony was out of the loop, not informed about something that he should have known.

"I don't think you quite understand what's at stake here." 

"What's at sta-? No, it's you who doesn't understand that Thanos has been inside of my head for six years." Tony walked closer and closer to Strange, pointing at his temple as he did. "Since he sent an army to New York and now he's back. And I don't know what to do. So I'm not so sure if it's a better plan to fight him on our turf or his, but you saw what they did. What they can do. At least on his turf, he's not expecting it. So I say we take the fight to him, Doctor."

Alison nudged Peter again, slapping the back of the boy's neck to get his attention again. His eyes had drifted towards where Tony and Steven were, Peter watching the two banter back and forth. "Hey Spider-Man," She teased, trying to stay conscious and positive. "Get your head out of the clouds and help me stand. I'm not just going to sit around and do nothing."

"Ali, I really can't-"

"Look, either you're going to help me stand or I'm going to do it myself. Your choice." Alison offered, quirking an eyebrow at the boy, her mask off her face, long gone from the fight. Trying to keep her face devoid of pain, Alison started to sit up again, wincing as she did so. "Besides, the quicker healing ability is gonna do me just fine." She brushed away the nervous look in Peter's eyes, distracting him with a countdown. "Three... two... -"

"Okay, Okay." Peter decided, hating every second of what he was doing. But he knew Alison, and knew she was the stubbornest person that he had ever met. If he wouldn't help her, she would just figure out a way to do it herself. Giving a large sigh, Peter wrapped his arm around the good side of Alison's waist, the other hand going to grab her open one. "God, you're one stubborn girlfriend." He muttered, seeing a smile arouse on Alison's face as he joked around with her.

"Shut up, you know you love me." Alison teased, squeezing his hand tightly almost as if to redirect the pain she was preparing to have as she stood up. Slowly but surely, the girl stood up, the pain flaring up as she stood. Ali's legs almost buckled underneath her, but Peter was there to hold her steady. "Great Bug Boy, now you're doing something right. Now let's get over to where the adults are."

Nodding, Peter kept his arm around her waist, holding out an arm for Alison to steady herself on. "You know, if you can't stand I'm going to carry you." He warned, Alison's grasp on his hand shifting to his arm, becoming iron tight for support.

"You better not." Alison rolled her eyes, taking her first step with a wince. "Because I'd kill you if you did. Pick up the pace. As much as you think I do, I don't have all the time in the world."

Picking up the pace (by only so much, Peter wasn't an idiot and he could see his girlfriend wincing with every step), the two crossed the ship, stopping underneath the rafters where Peter and Tony has been stationed not even an hour before. Alison's legs were ready to buckle, Peter stopping her from injuring herself even more by easing her back down to lean against a pole.

"Do you concur?" Tony asked, not even realizing that the teenagers he mentored had now made it over to a point where they could add into the conversation and listen in.

"All right Stark, we go to him." Strange agreed, staring Tony straight in the eyes. "But you have to understand... if it comes to saving you, or the kids or the Time Stone... I will not hesitate to let any of you die."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence Strange." Alison remarked, the eyes of the arguing men falling upon her. They could tell that she was a beaten up mess, a weak smile forming at the edge of her lips, not fully there but still present all the same. Easing herself back down into a a slumped sitting position, the girl almost laughed, her head thudding against the support of the ship she was leaning on. "Although I'm pretty sure I'm dead already so, go figure."

"Kid, you're awake. And- not on the other side of the ship. Parker, I swear to god-" Tony's eyes glanced at the kid, almost ready to start lecturing Peter. His hand moved to point over at Peter, giving the boy a look that meant nothing good.

"She made me help her walk over here, I swear Mister Stark. I told her to stay down but-" Peter looked at Alison, who was staring down Tony. "She doesn't really like to listen much."

"Miss Marnell." Strange gave her a small hello, dipping his head. His face was still one of seriousness and concern as he spoke, an almost frown forming on his face.

The kid had heard him, and she knew what he meant about the time stone. Or at least he assumed, due to the fact of their discussions of a mad titan and his daughter two years ago. Having the stone be taken and the powers of time used meant nothing good. "Good to see that you're at least awake."

"Strange. Good to know that you're not dead too. Heard you had fun with the Squidward-faced alien too." Alison greeted back, the strain of walking finally having an impact on the girl, the movement making the girl wince in pain and clutch the wound. Peter squatted down next to her, his eyes widening at the fact that she was still bleeding, her hands smeared with bright crimson red blood.

Bright red blood. God, May had warned him about this. It meant that it had hit something important in her body, that the hit was meant to be lethal. Peter's breath hitched in his throat as he stared up at Alison, who was fighting consciousness as her wound began to ooze more blood.

They had to get her help, and fast.

"I'm sorry, and how do you two know each other?" Tony questioned, his hand flitting between Alison and Doctor Strange. His eyes ones of confusion, they flitted back and forth almost nervously. "Birthday party, or..."

"It's complicated." Strange summarized, his eyes not daring looking down at the girl, knowing that he'd only give her a look covered in sadness and almost pity. He remembered another time when she had been in a rather precarious situation, but she had looked a hell of a lot better when battling that child of Thanos. "Takes too long to explain."

Peter, realizing that he had to say something, stood up from beside Alison. Placing his hand to her wound, Peter watched as she visibly flinched in pain, his fingers coming off slick with the bright red blood he had feared was coming from her. "Uh, guys? As much as I hate to interrupt bringing up everyone to speed- Alison- she's not doing so well. I don't think the bandaging worked well or something, 'cause, well, she's still bleeding. And it's the bad kind. Like really bad. May told me that blood this color- it means it hit something important.."

"Shit." Tony muttered, hopping off of the control center, rushing down to Peter's side.
Grabbing Peter's hand, seeing the color, his fingers came back with bright crimson, smeared with Alison's blood, Peter's worries confirmed with one light touch. "The solution was supposed to work-"

"It's her cells." Strange scolded himself for not realizing what was occurring sooner. "The solution you made freezes the cells in motion and slows the bleeding and everything, yes?" Getting a nod of approval from Tony, the doctor sighed. "Alison's cells vibrate and move at a faster rate than our do. They probably didn't slow down like humans cells normally would, or they did for a limited amount of time."

"What-what does that mean?" Peter questioned, still by Alison, almost as if to protect her from anything else that could be possibly worse than what had already happened. The way the Doctor and Tony were talking about the scientific and medical problems of the solution went too fast for the boy, Peter not being able to comprehend it all.

"It means that Alison will die if we don't get her off this ship, Pete." Tony realized, his eyes shutting as he sighed. His hand coming to his forehead, Tony wiped the back of his palm across his face, the ominous crimson stain of his hands from Alison's blood apparent. "Shit. Strange, is there any way-"

"Yes, I can get her back, but it's a long shot. To get to a specific place from this far, well, it's near impossible." Strange calculated, looking at Tony with a nervous look.

"You don't need to get specific. Just get her in the range." Tony thought of the perfect place, large enough and advanced enough to help Alison out.

"Where?" Strange asked, slipping his sling ring out onto his finger from the belt like sash that was around his waist.

"Upstate New York, Avengers Facility."

<~•~>
so guys ahahaha I'm so sorry please don't come for my neck

I flit in and out of writing marvel, and this chapter has probably SO many medical inaccuracies but you know what, it's a fantasy universe, so we can take those here. but hey, it's 7,000 words for you guys- which means it's like another one of my longest chapters I've ever written 

fun fact: the original chapter of this has been written out since November 2018 I think? it's definitely been a while, so I do apologize if there are inconsistencies with the writing style- I tried to improve it, as my writing style has improved over almost 3 years, so yeah, there's that

hopefully this strike of inspiration will stay around this time, and you guys can actually get content from me (:

sign of gift by remuslupout !