💕Better Off As Lovers💕 (peter parker x reader)

part 5

"Cowards," strained Wanda, trying her best to maintain her magic.

Tony started spitting out some potential plans and it wasn't long before all the heroes were arguing over what to do. But all their voices seemed to mesh together. I kept thinking about the Greek myths about the hydra monster. Hercules had beaten it with the help of Iolaus, his nephew. As soon as Hercules cut off one held, Iolaus used a flaming torch to burn the stumps and prevent them from regrowing. I wasn't sure how that would help us here because this monster was made entirely out of metal. Every automaton had to have a control panel or a special groove that would access the wires and gears inside of them. If Peter said there was no panel on the heads, there must be one on the body.

Then something crossed my mind.

The human body is sustained by the heart, which pumps blood to other parts of the body. Perhaps that was the same for the hydra, meaning that the heads were controlled by a heart.

Or the control panel.

And if we could access the heart ...

I was running before I knew what I was doing. I could hear Peter shouting at me and Tony yelling, but they were distant in my mind.

I raced over to the monster, which squirmed and hissed against Wanda's magical binds. Looking up at all of its eight ugly heads, I suddenly felt very insignificant. The thing was easily fifty feet tall, maybe more, and gleamed menacingly in the sun with its silver armor and terrifying spikes. The people of New York were smart to stay indoors. These streets had turned into an ancient Greek Jurassic World, broken glass and car parts littered the road, and I was sure about every lamppost in a 5 mile radius was crushed. Quite a few traffic lights were demolished too, and the asphalt itself was ripped up in some places.

I shoved down the fear constricting my chest. This thing could bite me in half as easily as someone stepping on an ant, and what I was about to do could quite literally be suicide. But there was something else in me that wanted to prove myself to the Avengers, and maybe HYDRA too; that even though I was some stupid teenager that almost failed art class last year and fantasized about burritos in biology, I could still kick ass. I wanted to be like Peter too, in a sense. I looked up to him, a hero admired by all of New York, and straight A student. This was my chance to prove to them that I was worth fighting for.

I charged the monster, leaping over its colossal claws that could crush Flash's new car in a heartbeat. The hydra's tail thrashed wildly, shaking the road and pulverizing a line of cars. Its arms were tangled over each other, acting as a sort of stepping stone for me to reach the heart. Still, though, the heap of limbs was too tall for me to climb, so I shifted into an eagle and flew to the top of the heap. When I shifted back, I almost threw up all over the metal because I felt so dizzy, but I swallowed it down (gross, I know) and focused on what I was going to do.

I faced the hydra's gargantuan chest, one that would make Chris Hemsworth cower in shame. Sure enough, I spotted the thin outline of a rectangle etched into the metal: the control panel.

Now that I had found the solution for stopping the automaton, two new problems arose. One: I had no way of unscrewing the panel off, and two: the hydra had noticed me. Both of them very bad.

All the heads, probably sick of being so close to each other's ugly faces, flailed angrily within Wanda's bindings. The magic flickered ever so slightly, and I almost lost my balance on the monster. I steadied my breathing, trying to clear my mind. I could handle this. I could find a solution.

Maybe I could shift into something very small and wriggle my way under there? But there was no doubt the hydra would still see me, it seemed to have acute vision. Plus, there was no guarantee I would be able to do anything if I did find my way under the lid of the panel. I could transform, but I would no doubt anger the hydra that way, and become lunch in the matter of seconds.

Then, amidst my frantic worrying and planning, the solution I needed came swinging into view like a red and blue monkey right next to me.

"Did you need a hand?" asked Peter cheekily.

"You got a plan, Spiderboy?"

He seemed offended. "First of all, I am a man —"

"Those voice cracks beg to differ."

"— and second of all," he continued, "did you really think I would let you get all the glory yourself?"

The hydra wriggled indignantly against its binds, shaking the ground. We steadied each other, and I looked straight at him. "If we survive this, I'm taking you to Chipotle. Deal?"

I could practically hear his smile in his voice. "Sounds good to me."

I quickly told him my plan, pointing at the control panel etched in the hydra's massive metal chest. He nodded, understanding.

Peter cast a web to the center of the panel and pulled. It didn't budge, causing Peter to struggle for a moment, mustering up every bit of his super strength. The metal creaked uneasily, but it finally gave away.

Behind the panel was the largest collection of wires I had ever seen. It looked like a nest of hundreds of brightly colored snakes.

"Should I just cut all of them?" I asked.

Peter examined the wires. There were ones of all sorts of colors, red, blue, black, white. It was a mess. However, Peter reached his hand into the panel and moved away a cluster of wires. There were four switches and a small red button underneath.

"A bit excessive, don't you think?" said Peter, smiling slightly.

I cursed angrily and pressed the button on the earpiece in my ear, opening up the connection. "Guys, we found the control panel. It's in the chest. There are a bunch of wires, switches, and a button. What do we do?"

But before anyone could reply, though, a variety of things happened all at once.

The low vibrating noise of a jet plane rumbled throughout the sky and a giant black aircraft shaped like a saucer cut through the sky. Then, the tendrils of magic that were holding the hydra's heads together broke as Wanda fell to the ground in an exhausted heap. Free, the hydra rounded on Peter and me, baring it's gleaming, metallic teeth.

I saw red.

I think I had pushed Peter out of the way of the fury of all eight heads, because he had fallen onto the street below, laying there for a minute to suck the breath back into his lungs. Then suddenly I shifted into a lion, the first animal I thought of, and had started tearing apart all the wires in the control panel with my teeth. When I had shifted back, the heads were twitching wildly, short-circuiting. I was able to flip all the switches and press the button, but not before a searing, stabbing pain erupted in my shoulder. It felt like someone had taken an electric spear to my back and doused it all in fire. I remember the hydra's metal limbs glinting in the sun as they fell, defeated, in a heap. I remembered hearing voices, but they seemed so far away because of the pain in my shoulder that I couldn't comprehend them.

And then I slipped into that painless abyss of unconsciousness.

***

A/N: whew, that was fun to write. thanks for reading!!  votes & comments are greatly appreciated :)