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MISADVENTURES IN PARADISE
v. SOLAR

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   THERE WAS A SAYING Riley could never quite remember about how, even in broad daylight, it is so easy to lose sight of what stands in front of you. You could climb mountains and still fail to realize what it cost to reach the top. Perhaps it wasn't much of a saying, but rather, the summation of the lives the bravest souls she knew led. A simple tagline for a story without any of the nuance — the push and pull between giving and taking, or chasing and fleeing — that made those stories so impactful.

   The moral of the story may not make sense now, but it goes something like this.

   If you believe the whole world is blind, how can you be so sure that you didn't lose your sight along the way, too?

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   The sunlight must've been playing tricks on Riley's eyes.

   But the sun had claimed to be her friend since it first touched her soul. This was no trick, no optical illusion, no blinding. This was a reflection. Her reflection.  

   They were nearly identical, from the slope of her nose, the curve of her smirk, the playfulness in her tone, to how she walked, moving as if gravity was incapable of anchoring her. The vigilante seemed young at first glance, younger than Riley. She lacked the battle scars and the stony look in her gaze that made Riley seem older. Yet the sunlight glittering in the palm of her hand was bright, and the way she recklessly wielded it made Riley realize the vigilante was older, just less experienced.

   That didn't make her any less of a threat.

   Warily, Riley asked, "Who are you?"

   "I'm Riley O'Dair. But I prefer Solar." Solar stalked toward her with the prowess of a starved bear. Eager, impatient, yet guarded and protective of something Valor couldn't place. Valor smoothly pivoted, and they began to walk in circles, studying one another. "Something unusual's happened to me again, hasn't it?"

   "Are you... real?"

   At least Solar's laugh seemed to be different. It was dry and insincere.

   "Judging your question, I imagine the unusual tends to follow you, too." Solar tapped her chin, and Riley noticed the first proper physical difference between them. Her fingertips were gray and desaturated — as if the melanin had been erased from her skin. The grayness traveled up her forearms, fraying as it reached her elbows. The only color that remained came from her deep purple veins. "How is this possible? Where did you come from?"

   "You tell me. You're the one who came to my home and started blowing stuff up."

   Solar hummed. "You don't own New York."

   "Don't I?" Riley returned. "I've endured enough mind games this year, so let's keep this simple. What is Peter Parker to you?"

   "Peter Parker... Peter Parker is my greatest problem, and, perhaps in his twisted way, my hero." Solar rolled her eyes. "I was so close. I was seconds away from having that pathetic bug writhing in my hands, but... Well, it gets fuzzy. We were fighting... and everything went dark. The next thing I knew, it was daytime again, and I was being asked for my autograph. Can't say that ever happens to me."

   "That's impossible."

   "I know, I thought the same—"

   "I think I would've heard," Riley clarified, "if Peter was busy fighting a clone of me."

   Solar stopped in her tracks. "And I'm pretty sure I'd know if I was fighting Spider-Man. It was our greatest battle yet. You have no idea how long I've been waiting—" She craned her neck as police cars finally arrived at the scene. The officers shuffled out, guns aimed at the pair. "Hmph. Typical. Don't worry, I can handle these clowns."

   With a mischievous smirk, Solar vanished.

   Riley turned, but she couldn't see Solar. At the very least, their powers seemed similar, meaning she should've been able to see her if she was invisible, yet no matter where Riley looked, Solar was nowhere to be found.

   Suddenly, Solar appeared behind one of the officers. She lit her hands with sunlight and grabbed the officer by his neck, incinerating him until his tissues and bones crumbled into ashes. Over the cacophony of mortified screams, Solar giggled, then vanished again.

   The officers scrambled, failing to grasp how their attacker resembled the beloved leader of the Avengers. Most whipped around in search of Solar. Some turned their trembling weapons toward Riley. But before they could fire at her, Solar emerged before them and incinerated them, too. Again. And again. And again. Sporadically, she vanished, then reappeared, then vanished again.

   Riley's stomach twisted as she struggled to keep up. When she couldn't register a pattern in Solar's movements, she shouted to the officers, "LEAVE. NOW."

   "But—!" one blurted.

   "DO NOT ENGAGE. RUN."

   That only made matters worse.

   Solar materialized in the middle of the crowd, firing light beams at the officers while simultaneously raising forcefields to deflect their bullets. She was domineering and erratic. Rather than fighting everyone off in one blow, she relished in how the officers, covered in blisters and burns, squirmed on the ground in pain. As she turned to her next victim, Valor finally leaped in between them. With light shrouding her fists, she punched Solar hard enough to send her flying.

   Solar landed on her knee with a grunt. "Why are you—?"

   Riley fired again. The cement lifted as Solar slid on her back, plowing through the abandoned cars. Flames blasted as the concentrated levels of sunlight touched the spilled gasoline. Quickly, Riley gathered the fires in her forcefields. The lack of oxygen extinguished them, leaving heavy clouds of smoke inside the forcefields. She lowered them onto Solar's body. The weight kept her pinned, and if she tried to break the forcefields open, she would suffocate.

   "What were you fucking thinking?" Riley demanded.

   "Pretty sure I was saving your ass," Solar coughed, clawing at the forcefields. Her purple veins glowed brighter.

   "You think you can just show up and start killing innocent people—?"

   That was when Riley realized Solar wasn't coughing. She was laughing.

   "Innocence. What a juvenile construct." Solar vanished again.

   Riley furrowed her eyebrows. If this was ultraviolet manipulation, why couldn't she see her? Was this how all of Valor's enemies felt when they had to fight her? Blind, helpless?

   Solar's voice came from behind her a second later as a cold hiss in her ear. "You sound so much like Spider-Boy. Save the innocents, slaughter the wicked. What gives heroes the right to decide who gets which label?"

   "Generally speaking," Riley elbowed Solar in the gut, shoved her to the ground, and kneeled on her stomach, "good people don't hurt others for no reason."

   "Oh, trust me. I have my reasons. So do you. Funny how that works," Solar said. "The heroes always say it's so hard, saving lives. Take off the crown, Your Highness, see how hard life is for normal people."

   Riley pushed down. "You call yourself normal?"

   "I like to believe I once was," Solar rasped. "Even the most nefarious demons were once innocent, too. We had our souls taken. Tell me, did our endangered innocence not make us worth saving? Must we be weak and submissive before some idiot in spandex can decide our lives are worth something? Help me, Riley. Save me."

   Solar disappeared again, reappearing a few feet away.

   "How do you keep doing that?" Riley snapped.

   "You can't teleport?" Solar wiped the blood from her cheek as the afternoon sun closed her fresh wounds. "A shame. I thought I'd finally found my equal."

   "Y...You can teleport?" Riley stammered.

   "Duh. Are you always so dense? I can't teleport more than a few feet at a time, and I can't do it without the sun's presence, but it's a neat party trick. I'd show you the ropes, but I'd have to kill you first," Solar said.

   That wasn't all. Riley could tell teleportation sapped up her energy from how she was struggling to catch her breath in silence.

   "If you won't bring me to Spider-Man, then it's clear. Our faces and powers are mirrors, but our hearts don't align," Solar continued. "Worry not, princess. We'll keep in touch. In fact, I'll deliver his skull to your doorstep myself."

   Riley's blood ran cold. Now that she'd seen a fraction of what Solar was capable of, nothing else mattered. Not who this clone truly was, where she came from, or how they managed to be near-perfect reflections of each other. All she could think of was Peter.

  Not Peter. Not him.

   Shrouding herself with light again, Riley charged forward. But before her fist could land, Solar vanished, and a gold portal swooped in from the side, transporting Riley into a dark basement.

   That didn't stop her momentum, however, as she attacked the first person closest to her.

   If Peter Parker didn't have his Spidey Sense, he probably would've lost half his teeth.

   "GAH— WOAH!" Peter shouted, narrowly dodging at the last second. "Riley—? AH, HEY!" She swung again and missed. "RILEY, HEY, STOP! IT'S ME, IT'S PETER!" He grabbed her arm when she tried to hit him a third time. It took a good fraction of his strength to restrain her. "HEY, HEY, HEY, WHAT'S GOING ON? WHAT'S WRONG?"

   Her breaths were short and frantic as she fought his grip. Finally, her shoulders fell. "Peter, holy shit. What's happening? Where is she?"

   "Where's who—?"

   "Where is she?" Riley repeated before noticing his outfit: a crumpled formal suit with a tie torn in half and some fragments of nanotech from the Iron Spider suit on his abdomen. "What the hell happened to you? Where are we? Where is she?"

   "Calm down! It's okay, take a deep breath— AHH!" Peter shrieked as a beastly roar erupted from behind them. He and Riley latched onto each other as they spotted a massive mutated lizard in a cell. It snarled and clawed at the magical barrier enclosing it. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"

   "I DON'T KNOW, I JUST GOT HERE— GAH!" Riley squealed as a man with metal tentacles attached to his back aggressively banged on his magical cage.

   They screamed one last time as a hand clamped down on each of their shoulders, forcibly turning them around. Dr. Strange stood before them with a bloody gash on his cheek.

   Exasperatedly, he greeted, "Be careful what you wish for, Parker."

   Riley snapped, "We need to have a serious talk about you portaling me without warning whenever you need something! Have you ever heard of a phone, or is every Mystic at Kamar-Taj an old fuck who doesn't believe in WiFi?"

   "LET ME OUT OF HERE!" Octopus Man bellowed. Upon closer inspection, Riley noticed parts of his tentacles were ensnared with red nanotech, again from Peter's Iron Spider suit.

   Breathless, Peter begged, "Can you please explain to me what is going on?"

   "That little spell you botched where you wanted everyone to forget that Peter Parker's Spider-Man," Strange bitterly said, "it started pulling in everyone who knows Peter Parker's Spider-Man from every universe into this one."

   "From every universe...?" Peter repeated.

   "Hold on." Riley grabbed Peter, turning him toward her. His eyes widened with dread. "You tried to WHAT?"

   "I-I can explain!"

   "I think Sherlock explained it quite clearly!"

   "I know it sounds kinda bad—"

   "KINDA?"

   "Really bad! Really bad. But I was trying to get MJ and Ned a second chance at getting into MIT, and—"

   "Who are all of you?" Octopus Man chimed. "And where am I?"

   "Wait your turn! You have all those hands, and you can't think to raise any of them?" Riley scolded, to which he gasped.

   "I think it's better we don't engage with them," Strange warned, "because, frankly, the Multiverse is a concept about which we know frighteningly little."

   "Oh, you don't think I know that? The Starks invented time travel! I know the dangers of tampering with multiple universes!" Riley pointed a finger at him. "What kind of sorcerer — the former owner of the Time Stone, mind you — decides to tempt the fragility of the multiverse for something so minuscule? What, did you run out of stupid ways to shave your beard and decided you wanted to ask an alternate version of yourself for advice?"

   Dumbfounded, Octopus Man repeated, "Time travel?"

   Peter's jaw dropped. "The multiverse is real? Why didn't you tell me?"

   Riley slowly turned to him. "Why didn't I tell you? Why didn't you tell me you were going to casually brainwash me and the rest of the world?"

   "In case that wasn't already obvious, this wasn't my intention when I attempted to cast that spell," Strange rebuked. "Maybe if someone hadn't tried to change my spell 10 times mid-casting, we wouldn't be having this predicament. This shouldn't even be possible."

   "Not that I approve of this at all, but Peter tried to alter your spell 10 times, and you didn't think to stop and confirm the exact conditions he wanted first?" Riley asked.

   "Thank you!" Peter exclaimed.

   "We are NOT on the same team right now."

   "Right, right, sorry. Um..." Peter's face flushed as he avoided her heated gaze. "But, wait, I thought you stopped the spell?"

   "No, I contained it. But it would appear that a few of them squeaked through," Strange said. "After you left, I detected an otherworldly presence. I pursued it into the sewers, where I found that—" He nodded to the Lizard. "—slimy, green son of a gun."

   "Spell? As in magic?" Octopus Man sneered. "What is this, a birthday party? Who is this clown? What is this madness?"

   "Watch this," Strange said before he asked Octopus Man, "Do you know a Peter Parker who's Spider-Man?"

   "Yes."

   Strange pointed at Peter. "Is that him?"

   "No. But I know Little Miss Sunshine over there." He motioned to Riley. "That perky little journalist with the 10,000 questions. Her articles on Oscorp were nothing but positive, yet they still take up half of my nightmares."

   "I would rather eat my foot than be a journalist— Wait," Riley said, "you recognize me, but not Peter?"

   "The chances of this fellow coming from an alternate universe where another version of you exists and happens to be your doppelganger are... slim, but not impossible," Strange dismissed. "Okay, here's what we gotta do. I don't know how many of these visitors we've got—"

   "I saw another one on the bridge," Peter said. "He was like a... flying, green elf."

   "Well, he sounds jolly," Strange sarcastically said. "Why don't you start with him?"

   "I found one, too," Riley said. "But she looked exactly like me. Her powers were identical to mine, too. Maybe stronger. I don't know. That's who I was dealing with when you pulled me here. She said her name's Riley O'Dair, but she goes by Solar. I wasn't even sure if she was real at first, but..."

   Strange held his hand against his torso, which must've been bruised from his encounter with the Lizard. "Interesting... If this Octopus Guy recognizes you, and this Solar person looks exactly like you..."

   "They have to be from the same universe."

   "But the odds of that..."

   "Slim but not impossible. My life motto, apparently," Riley said. "The multiverse is an infinite plethora of potential. When I found Solar, she was out of control. She killed countless people right in front of me without hesitation, all because she..." She flinched. "It doesn't matter right now. Just know that when you beautifully screwed up that spell, you managed to bring in a sociopathic, evil version of myself. Well done, boys. Truly."

   Strange sighed, limping further into the basement. "Great. I need you two to capture our visitors and bring them here while I figure out how to get them back before they destroy the fabric of reality or kill anyone else, or worse, Wong finds out."

   "Uh, Dr. Strange?" Peter called. "My friends and I just got a second chance at getting into MIT. If the school sees me fighting these crazy monsters—"

   "HEY, WATCH YOUR MOUTH!" Octopus Man yelled.

   "I-I'm sorry—!"

   Strange scoffed. "You're seriously still thinking about college?" As he spoke, he waved his hand to transfer the last fragments of Peter's nanotech onto his own forearm. With the use of magic, he enhanced it.

   "Hey, what did you just do?" Peter demanded.

   "This." Strange fired a glimmering string of web at Peter, who disappeared upon impact into tiny little sparks.

   "Peter!" Riley gasped, only to realize he'd been transported inside one of the cells. She placed a hand over her heart in relief. "That gave me war flashbacks."

   "Hey, you can't just—!" Peter groaned as he bumped his head against the enchanted cell barrier.

   Octopus Man's jaw fell open. "How did you do that?"

   "Lots of birthday parties," Strange remarked before deactivating the barrier and freeing Peter. He flung his arm, and the web shooter returned to Peter, molding into a mini gauntlet. "One shot, send them here, move on. You're welcome. Get to work."

   Riley raised her hand. "I don't get one?"

   "You have forcefields."

   "Oh, right."

   Before Strange could leave, Peter beckoned again, "Sir?"

   He sighed. "Now what?"

   "I know this is my mess, and I swear to you that I'll fix it," Peter declared, "but we're gonna need some extra help."

   As if reading his mind, Riley opposed, "Absolutely not!"

   Strange rolled his eyes. "I'll let you lovebirds work out the details yourselves. If you need anything from me... don't." With that, he was gone.

   Peter followed Riley through the basement, away from their interdimensional visitors. "Why not?" he asked. "They helped us with the Belmont case!"

   "That is completely different. Eden was a stupid human. I'm not letting you put our friends in an environment where they could get killed by a fish robot, a dinosaur—"

   "Pretty sure it's a lizard—"

   "Or my evil twin! Or one of Santa's unionized elves, or whatever else is out there!" Riley asserted. "How did you manage to only summon creeps? You couldn't have manifested someone nice? Like another Peter Parker or something!?"

   "The point of the spell was to erase, not add to our world," Peter awkwardly corrected. He took her hand, stopping her from walking any further. "Hey, look at me. Please. I'm sorry. I just... wanted you to know that I'm capable of fixing my messes by myself, okay? I wanted to prove that I'm not... I don't know, useless."

   Her eyes softened. "Pete, I get involved with your messes because I love you, not because I think you can't fix it yourself. You're my best friend. You're my boyfriend," she assured. "I'm upset because Spider-Man is the only reason I know you. I don't want to live in a world where I don't know you, and the fact that it was almost possible..."

   "If it helps, you were the first person I thought of when I tried to change Strange's spell... which sounds kinda romantic if you don't think about how I almost forgot to include May."

   Riley stared at him for a moment before stifling a laugh. "I would call you perfect if you weren't such an idiot sometimes."

   "It's part of my charm."

   "Something like that," she said. "Fine, we can bring MJ and Ned onto this case. And I'm sure Roman will be excited to beat up my evil twin regardless of if we gave him the choice of sitting this one out. But the second this gets too dangerous—"

   "I know, I know," Peter said. "I just... I can't do this alone."

   She squeezed his hand. "One day, you'll be begging for me to leave you alone," she teased. "Now, tell me about how you got a second chance at MIT."

   "Right," Peter said, and they headed out of the basement to collect their friends. "So, after I botched the spell, I called Flash because I wanted to try and get MJ and Ned into MIT, and he told me that I should talk to this MIT chancellor lady. I found her on her way to the airport, and at first, she was all, Gross, no, I'm not giving you a second chance. Also, you're standing in the middle of the street. Well, she didn't say it like that, but anyway, I was in the middle of convincing her when Mr. Robot Octopus showed up and tried to kill me! For no reason! Hadn't even shaken his hands yet, and we were already fighting! I honestly felt like Tony, but anyway, I ended up saving the chancellor lady, which was how I got all three of us a second chance at MIT."

   "Wow, that's..."

   "I know! But lemme tell you about this fight. You had to be there. He had all his tentacle guys out, so I got out my spider legs — you know, to even the playing field. And then we..."

   Riley smiled as she listened to his story, but she couldn't ignore the worry building in her gut.

   She always thought that if she ever met a clone of herself, she would be able to trust and befriend her. (How she would ever end up in that kind of situation, she didn't know. She and Vision ran out of debate topics after a while). But now, it was clear Solar's presence in this universe wouldn't bring anything good.

   They shared a face and powers, after all. How long until she used that to her benefit? How long until the world began to distrust Valor? Until she killed more people? Until she dared to try and kill Peter Parker? If she somehow killed Peter, what would stop Solar from targeting Tony, Pepper, Morgan, and everyone else she loved that was scattered across the world?

   Riley didn't want to admit it, but if she were Solar, that was what she would do: take every what-if and bring them to reality. There was no telling how much time she had before Solar formed her plan.

   Would she try to kill Riley, too? Take her place? Maybe destroy the life she'd hardly lived freely? Then what? Who in this world was strong enough to defeat Riley O'Dair other than Riley herself? Powers were one thing, intelligence was another. No one had them in the burdensome capacity that Riley did.

  No one was Riley Stark.

   And if they truly were opposite reflections of each other, no one needed to know what the world would look like if Solar decided to challenge that statement.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Riley and Solar for the rest of this act:

"I dunno if I could ever write dark Riley guys, sorry" — me when I lie

First of all, let's just list out every single thing Riley has had to fight throughout this entire series: aliens, Norse Gods, murderous robots, superhuman angsty twins, the government, secret spies and soldiers (including the Winter Soldier), her own teammates, her biological father, Thanos, Agatha Harkness (as well as getting kidnapped by the Scarlet Witch), Super Soldiers (including humbling John Walker), murderous "super fans", and Mysterio.

There's also been time travel, briefly going to purgatory, destroying the Infinity Stones twice, inventing time travel, watching her loved ones die (and casually be reincarnated), and honestly, probably so much more.

YOU CAN ONLY IMAGINE HOW STUCK I WAS WHEN THINKING ABOUT WHAT TO WRITE NEXT.

Then, I realized the best finale I could give you guys was this: a good old-fashioned Riley vs. Riley showdown. After everything, the greatest darkness she has to overcome is herself.

I hope you guys are excited. I know I am. :)