Chapter 42: How Many Doors (Peter)


Previously:

I mean it should be fairly fresh in your mind but he got attacked by weird lights and then died. Mr Stark had to shocky shock his heart like a dozen times to bring him back. While he had been dead he met an evil doctor strange who made it his life purpose to eradicate all spider men because of what happened in his universe. When he came around he told Captain America and Mr Stark that he thought he'd just met who's behind it.

Refer to the previous chapter for Hiccup's recollection of the recent events.

it's been edited a little but feel free to point out any mistakes!

Now:
Peter's POV

"I think... I think I just met who was behind this."

As I say it I roll onto my feet and attempt to stand on shaking legs, but Mr Stark grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me back down.

"Uh yeah, you're not going anywhere." He says, shaking his head firmly at me.
"What do you mean you met who's behind this?" Cap asks me. Before I can answer Kate warns of approaching robots. I shake my head, trying to clear the haze in my mind, and turn to see the robots approaching. There's a lot of them.

Toothless steps in front of us and spreads his wings, ready to attack the robots. Hiccup draws his fire sword, readying himself in the saddle. Captain America steps up next to them and presses a finger to his ear, "We'll draw them away."

Toothless takes to the sky while cap sprints across the ground.

"I should—I should help." I say out loud. I can't just sit here, the battle's not over!

"Peter, no. I mean it. You can't go moving around." Mr Stark responds. At least it's just us, or that would have given my identity away, very much so.

"He's right, Peter. Any strenuous activity could badly affect your health and you may end up without a pulse again." Karen says.

"But... but...he said he was... he said he's going to kill all of me..." I'd say more if I could, but it's exhausting enough as it is. Whatever just happened to me is still effecting my energy as I struggle to get the words out. I still don't know what those energy ball things were, I just know that they hit me then I was talking to the evil Strange and apparently dead. I groan, frustrated and still in pain if I'm being honest, but I don't make a move to get up. A robot flies overhead, having slipped through Toothless' and Steve's defences, but Mr Stark aims his repulsor at it and shoots, sending it crashing to the ground.

"They're amassing!" The coms crackle as Clint warns us. "It was kind of random before, they attacked anything and everything but now they're all heading in the one direction!"
"Right towards you, Stark." Thor exclaims. I frown, looking around. They're heading for me, that Evil Strange has sent them to kill me. That's got to be the only reason they're suddenly switching strategies.

"I'm still with the kid." Mr Stark interjects, spinning around to fire another blast just over me. I turn to see an alien fall. Why didn't my spider sense go off.
"I'm—I'm not a kid!" I retort into the coms, wanting to save face. My voice doesn't come out as strong as I'd like, I barely push the words out. "I'm... an adult."
"We're running out of options." Tony continues, firing another blast at a robot flying towards us. I raise my hand to shield my face from the rocks it kicks up when the robot hits the ground.

"Let me help, I can... I can do something." I beg Mr Stark.

"You're not seeing the gravity of the situation. I had to bring you back to life." He fires another blast, his back to me as he continues to speak sternly. " You are done. The battle is over for you. Good job."

I hang my head, feeling helpless and frustrated. I just want to help. Just let me help. They're coming for me. They're here to kill me. They're going to kill me.

I watch Thor fly overhead, riding lightning down onto the battlefield and sending out bolts all around. A few moments later Mr Rhodey flies overhead, tackling a robot out of the sky. All I can do is watch as everyone moves towards us. Clint and Kate fire arrows from new locations, Wanda uses her magic to tear apart robots and aliens, Bucky fights next to Steve, Loki weaves in and out of clusters of the enemy and uses his magic and daggers to take them down, Yelena targets mostly aliens as she jumps on them and taking them down however she can, Thor attacks with his fists and his lightning, Toothless harnesses some lightning as well but mostly uses his fire blasts and claws, Natasha uses her widow bites and her whole body basically to slam aliens and robots down, the Hulk destroys anything that moves (except for the good guys), and Vision—despite not being much of a fighter— uses his mindstone to destroy the enemy. Mr Stark stays by me but also fires at the enemy as much as he can, All I want to do is jump in and help them all. I'm supposed to be a hero and I'm sitting here on my ass...

The battle continues on, robots and aliens falling left and right. I'm just glad no one on our side is falling. We can't afford a loss like that.

The coms are ever active as everyone scrambles to work together.

"Clint, I'm moving, cover me." Kate says.
"Go for that building to your 4'o'clock, it's got good cover."
"Right, right!"

"Brother, hit it again... yes!"
"Ha! Just like when we were kids!"
"Don't get any ideas."
"What, you don't wanna do 'get help'?"
"I hate it, Thor. A lot. Never again."

"Natasha look out." Bucky warns.
"Oh..." A series of sounds that sound suspiciously like punches landing surface before she speaks again. "Thanks."

Soon I can't take it anymore and I stand up, gripping the car next to me as my body shudders in protest. It dents under my fingers as I stop myself from calling out in pain. Mr Stark is busy nearby fighting a particularly angry group of aliens. I scan the battlefield, trying to find a good place to help.

Then a scream rings out. "Help! Help me!" My head snaps to the right, where the noise came from, and I look for who made it. I can't see anything but buildings, some partly destroyed. Maybe someone is trapped inside! "Help!" The person screams again and I need no more convincing, taking off running (well, half running, thanks to a limp I have).

I run across the ground and to a big building, I can see from the outside that it's power is out and as I get closer I notice some rubble lying on the floor inside. I bound into the building, not even considering the fact that it could be a trap.


Third POV

The Avengers continue the battle, joined by Toothless, Hiccup and Dagur as they all try to overcome the enemies. They're fighting hard, so hard they don't notice the missing presence of the injured Spider-man until Loki brings it up a few minutes later.

He'd been fighting a robot, taking it down easily with his daggers and rolling out of the way of it as it falls. He effortlessly twists onto his feet and rolled his shoulders, glancing to his right to see if any robots had slipped by towards the spider-man. But the ground by the upturned vehicle is empty.

He looks around, not spotting the brightly coloured man. "Where is the spider child?" He asked, speaking into the earthy communication device he'd picketed from someone earlier in the battle.

"Shit." Yelena cursed.
"I saw him like a SECOND ago!" Rhodey yelled, angry. "How'd he get away so quickly?"
"He's got to be around here somewhere," Thor adds.
"probably trying to get his ass kicked because he's too stubborn." Tony scowls, wishing that for once the kid would actually listen to him.
"How bad is he injured?" Clint asks.

"I don't know how bad the shocks affected his body, or the hits he took, or even what the lights did to him. I just know he was kind of out of it." Tony responds, trying not to let his worry show.

"He was convinced he'd met who was behind this, it sounds a lot like delirium to me." Cap contributed, remembering how frantic the man had appeared.

"I never got a clear explanation out of him, but we should keep our eyes out." Tony says.
"Right. Well all I've seen is robots and aliens, I haven't seen anyone else amongst them." Clint adds.

"Friday, can you track him?" Tony asks, hoping the kid hadn't disabled the tracker in the suit again.

"I can, but the tracker has gotten damaged in the battle so it will take several minutes to narrow down the ping." Friday informs him. Tony sighs in frustration, vowing to improve the tracker's durability as soon as the battle is over. In the meantime all he can do is continue to fight, knowing one less robot or alien is one less to worry about.

Tony fought brutally, frustration and worry consuming his thoughts.
Why doesn't he listen to me?! God, every time something like this happens I swear I grow a grey hair. I really hope he's not bleeding out somewhere. I can't have him die on me again.

Peter's POV

My hands barely shoot out in front of me to stop a table from hitting me and I clench my teeth as my ribs jolt. I'm surrounded by robots, the door I'd walked through shut firmly behind me. It'd swing closed as soon as I'd walked in. My spider sense didn't warn me.

I try to fend off the robots, punching and kicking them and throwing them into each other, but my moves are sluggish and my spider sense so jittering I can't half tell what's the real threat and what's not. It tells me that maybe I should have listened to Mr Stark telling me to stay put. I mean, he is the expert on hearts after all.

I dodge out of the way of a string of bullets and manage to push the offending robot into a wall, punching another one until it falls down, and just barely bending out of the way of a metal spike. I gasp in pain from the movement and my spider sense goes off. I duck to the right and stick my hand out to catch the spike. I slam it down and it breaks off the robot, so I'm able to use it as a weapon and hack the robot apart. The last robot falls victim to my taser webs and I'm left there panting, surrounded by half a dozen robots.

"Wow," A voice leers from behind me and I spin around, "I didn't think you had it in you."

My heart speeds up as my eyes scan the darkness. He's here.

"You're stronger than I gave you credit for, I assumed you were one of the weaker ones." He steps into the small bit of light coming from an open window, and my fears are confirmed. The dr strange I met after the lights smirks at me. "But nonetheless, I'm still going to kill you."

He brings his hands in front of his chest, and his fingers start moving to form a spell. I start to back away one step at a time.

Meanwhile, Tony's POV

"Boss," Friday speaks up as I slam an alien into the pavement so hard I hear cracks. "I've got Peter's location."

I turn away from the alien, "let's go I've got the location." I say into coms as the locations pops up on my interface.

"Hiccup, Wanda, Bucky go with him, the rest of us will continue to fight." Capsicle orders. I take off into the sky towards a building a few streets away. An old warehouse, part of a storage unit by the looks of it. Within seconds I land in front of the door. I eye it, unsure what will be waiting on the other side. A bleeding out Peter? A dead Peter? A trapped Peter?

"Should we split up?" Bucky asks, getting off the saddle where he'd been sitting behind Hiccup.
"I'll check the back." Wanda responds, running off with her hands flexing red magic.
"Everyone else with me." I respond, walking up to the door. I turn and nod to them, then blast the door open.

I storm in to find the room empty, except for a few robot bodies scattered around. But there's another door on the far side of the room, so I start walking towards it. I try not to think about how fast my heart is beating as I reach for the second door's handle. The glow of my repulsor is the only light in the room— at least it was, until the dragon's spine lights up an electric blue and Hiccup pulls out his fire sword. I yank open the door.

Not a sound comes out of the room and I step in. Warily, Bucky, Hiccup and Toothless follow. It's silent for a few seconds as I creep across the ground. "Boss, I am detecting other heart beats in the room."

"Wait..." Hiccup whispers. I give him a look out of the corner of my eye. Now is not the time to chicken out. His eyes widen and he licks his sword off. "Wait! Turn your lights off! Now!" He urges loudly. He speaks so frantically I do exactly what he says, disengaging my replulsors and leaving us in darkness if it weren't for the arc reactor and the dragon's spine.

"What?" Bucky asks, spinning around in the darkness, defensive. "What is it?"

"Do you smell that?" Hiccup asks. I pause and my eyebrows thorough in confusion as I take in a weird smell. "I know it anywhere."

"Some kind of gas?" Bucky asks, raising his hand to his face to try and stop himself from inhaling it, assuming its toxic. That's a smart move, so I do it too.

"Whatever you do, do not move." Hiccup orders, deadly serious. "Unless you have water, do not move." Hiccup reiterates. "One spark and we're all dead."
Toothless makes a sound and Hiccup sighs, "well, you're all dead." He amends. "Toothless and I have the scales as protection."

"That's reassuring." Bucky mutters. The room falls into silence as we all wait for something to happen. The tension in the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife as we all wait with baited breath. For what? I have no idea. Peter could be in here somewhere.

"Wait!" Someone calls out and I look around, confused. That didn't sound like...

"Hiccup?!"

Out of nowhere, two shapes pop up into the small amount of light we have, thanks to the glow of the arc reactor. I make out the shapes to be human.

"Are you kidding me?!" Hiccup whisper shouts. "What are you two doing here?! Don't tell me the whole gang is here!"

A gust of wind hits us and whatever gas surrounding us is pushed back. Where on earth did that wind come from?!

My unasked question is answered when a larger shape appears behind the two people, looming overhead with wings spread and pumping the gas away. Bucky takes a step back, wary.

"You know them?" I ask, turning to Hiccup as I gesture to the people and creature.

"Yeah." He sighs.

"This way." One of them says and points to a door behind them. Hiccup starts moving immediately and I look at him.

"This seems like a trap." Bucky announces what I was thinking. One of the people chuckled, a male voice.

"Nahhh, we could've blown you up right then if we wanted to. Would have been a cool death." He says. The other one pulls open the door and I can see more light in the other room.

"They're fine," Hiccup assures us. I give a hesitant shrug and follow after him as he follows them and the larger creature into the room.

We step into the room and my eyes adjust to the new light. I take in the room, some kind of office with desks and papers strewn about all over the place, chairs and tables upturned. The lighting is coming from a few flickering fluorescent lights overhead, but it's enough to light the room.

Now I can see them, I take note of the people. Two skinny tall blondes with long hair, horned helmets, and weird clothes. One is a girl and one is a boy, as much as I can tell. "They're yours." I sigh, looking at Hiccup. "Aren't they."

He nods. "This is Ruffnut and Tuffnut, they're twins. And their dragon, Barf and Belch." He introduces, gesturing to the girl, the guy, and the two headed green dragon that had slapped us in the face with wind earlier. Toothless runs over to the dragon and starts, I think, greeting it.

"We've been chasing you for ever!" The man, Tuffnut, exclaims dramatically with a groan.

"Yeah! We've been chasing our tails trying to get to you." The woman, Ruffnut, adds.
"I'll get it one day." Tuffnut mumbles.
"Why did you have to get a fast dragon? Why couldn't you get a Gronkle." Ruffnut mutters.

"Guys..." Hiccup begins but they continue talking.

"And by the gods this place is so weird, but it's actually... kind of cool at the same time." Ruffnut exclaims.
"Yeah, did you know they don't allow you to cross the street whenever you want?" Tuffnut adds.
"Yeah. They didn't like us doing that." Ruffnut chuckles.
"Especially when we threw ourselves in front of those moving metal things." Tuffnut says brightly.
"Apparently it's 'taboo' and 'endangering lives' and 'a one way ticket to the mental health ward'!" Ruffnut adds, her tone as if she was complaining.

"Cars?" Bucky whispers, looking about as confused as I feel.
"Apparently not everyone likes to witness cool deaths!" Tuffnut continues, "such a bore. But it's not like we were actually going to die, maybe a little banged up— a bruise, a broken bone..."
"But not our craniums!" Ruffnut interjects, removing her helmet and knocking on her forehead which gives off a weird echo, I try not to think about it.

"Yeah! And besides we still needed to find your twig butt. Now that we have we can die a cool death!" Tuffnut exclaims, and I let a breath out when none of them continue. I can already feel a headache developing.

"W-Wow...wow guys." Hiccup exclaims, trying to wrap his head around what's happening. "It's great to see you, I guess, uh... how long has it been, for you? Because... I don't really know how to say this, but I've got terrible news because Dagur is here and apparently it's been five years."

"Five years since you trained Toothless?" Ruffnut asks.
"Uhh, yeah we know!" Tuffnut rolls his eyes. "Even we know that. You never shut up about it."

"What? No it's been, like, seven years now. But technically 12 now, if we go off what Dagur says."

"What are you talking about?" Tuffnut asks, staring at him, but not looking bothered.
"Everyone says we're the crazy ones." Ruffnut crosses her arms.

"Wait, so... have Toothless and I disappeared?" Hiccup asks.

"Only when you run off from Stoick!" Tuffnut laughs. "It's so funny, because every time he turns around and you're just... gone."
Ruffnut laughs too.

"Has...Has my dad—"

"Made you chief? Not yet, you keep running off whenever he gives the talk!" Ruffnut chuckles.

"So... you're still on Old Berk." Hiccup says slowly, putting the pieces together.

"'Old' Berk? Come on, it's not that bad."

"Drago hasn't attacked? My mum hasn't been found? The bewilderbeast hasn't fought Toothless?"

"Uhh I think he's been getting into the dragon nip again." Tuffnut whispers to Ruffnut loudly.
"Cool." She responds with an unbothered laugh.

"Ok, let's just... get this straight." Bucky gives a tired sigh. "You two know Hiccup, he knows you, but you come from different times."

"Yeah, it seems so." Hiccup nods.

"Different universes?" Bucky adds. "Let's go with that, and move on."

"So that means that maybe I haven't been gone—"

"We did come to this building with a purpose, so let's get going." I finally interrupt. "Spider-man is in here somewhere and we've been standing around talking! Friday!"

"Heat signatures picked up through the door to your right."

Glad someone is on task.

I turn towards the wooden door I stand next to and grab the handle. It's locked, so I blast a hole in the door and step through it instead. Immediately bullets fly at me, so my helmet comes up and they bounce off my armour. A door slams on the other side of the room. I blast at the direction of the bullets and take down two robots. Theres a third and forth robot, but I kick up an upturned table and use it as a shield to block the bullets from hitting Bucky, who had followed me in. A couple years ago and I would have let those bullets hit him.

I toss the table at the robots which knocks them down. A blast from Toothless flies over my head and renders the robots useless. There's a bunch of other robot bodies in the room, all incapacitated.

"Tony," Bucky calls, and I look over to him. He's crouched over a robot, touching a web.
"That's one of his." I nod. "We can't be far now."
He stands up after pulling his hand free of the web (after a bit of a struggle that would probably be amusing if we were in different circumstances).

I turn towards the door that had slammed moments earlier, a metal one this time.

"Duck." Hiccup yells, and Bucky and I do so, just in time for a plasma blast to fly over our heads and hit the door. A bunch of smoke fills the room but fades quickly, revealing a smoking hole where the door used to be.

This time, voices arise from the next room.

"Don't... don't do this."

Peter.

The next thing I know I'm charging into the room, arms up and repulsors ready. I see Peter first, slammed against the wall by some kind of invisible force, arms forced to his sides as he struggles. He looks like he's being strangled, but nothing is touching him and his mask is still on.

The next person I see is Strange, smirking up at Peter from across the room as his hands move quickly in front of himself. Casting a spell.

What?

"Mis'r s'ark." Peter rasps. Friday connects to his suit so I'm able to see his face. Yeah he's being strangled. Without a second thought I turn my repulsor towards Strange.
"What are you doing?!" I shout at him.
He glances at me, then takes a second look. "Tony."
"Let him go! Are you crazy?!"
"No. I need to do this. You'll understand."
"Mis'r S'ark! S' no 'im!" Peter cries out, but ends up being choked harder by the invisible force. I fire at Strange, but he deflects it by casting a new spell to conjure a shield, which gives Peter about a second of relief before Strange returns to casting the spell. " 's no' him."

It's not our Strange.
I fire again at him, this time multiple times in a row, which forces him to dodge. He forms a magic spell, this time magic whip-like glows appearing from his hands, and he yanks them towards us. I dodge the first few times, but they're so long that one of them gets me, and the suit shuts down.

"No!" I struggle, the suit incapacitated. I'm stuck in a standing position, I try not to shift my weight because then I'll fall and I know I'll be no help face down on the floor.

"Rebooting." Friday gets though just enough to say that, before being unresponsive as the suit tries to regain power. Bucky this time lunges for Strange, raising his metal arm up to protect himself against the whip, which works well for him until one wraps around his ankle and yanks him off his feet and into the wall. Hard. He doesn't get back up.

This time Toothless attacks, firing a blast at Strange's feet so fast he doesn't have time to react. It's enough to blast a hole in the concrete flooring, which momentarily throws Strange off balance. I turn my head to check on Peter, just to see Hiccup and the twins struggling to pull his limbs from the wall, trying to get him free. The spell must still be in affect this time.

Strange whips at Toothless, but he manages to dodge it— quite nimble for a dragon. But then again, I'm not the expert. Toothless fires again, but Strange deflects the shot into the wall. The building shakes. Strange forms a new spell, and this time thick vines shoot up from under the concrete and ensnare Toothless, who struggles against them, but can't break free. I look back over at Peter, but Hiccup and the Nut people haven't made any progress. My suit isn't online, i don't even see a loading bar.
What are we going to do?!

I know for a Peter chapter this didn't have a lot of Peter but I'm sure it's fine. It's past 2 am for me so I'm gonna stop here (and I did this instead of watching a lecture so you're welcome). I think it's a decent length! I really hope I didn't accidentally leave any of my personal notes throughout the chapter, I like to make plot points as I write lmao and sometimes I forget to delete them after moving on.

I'll see you next chapter with Hiccup!

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