New Chapter!! Told ya I'd get it done. What didn't believe me? (I wouldn't blame you)
Here we go.
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Gwen had quickly run out of things to swing on. The buildings turned into sparse trees, and then the trees went. Now she was running, following the tracks, hoping she'd find Peter soon. Peter stumbles up the tracks, everything hurt, his legs especially. Every step hurt, every breath hurt, heck, even thinking hurt, but he had to get back. Mysterio had betrayed them, Gwen had to know.
Gwen was running, tall grass surrounding her, blocking out much of her vision. She saw a figure in the grass and tried to stop.
Peter heard a rustling in the tall grass ahead of him. Against all instinct, he limped closer, reaching the edge of the tall grass.
Gwen came flying out of the grass, barreling right into Peter, and they rolled backward together.
Gwen stood up quickly, "Oh I am so sorry...PETER! Oh, my god! I'm even more sorry!"
Peter was on the ground, his face set in a grimace, but he raised his arm in a thumbs up. Gwen grabbed Peter under the armpits and carefully hoisted him up, Peter grunted in obvious pain when he landed on his feet.
"So...," Gwen said awkwardly, "Hit by a train?"
Peter nodded.
"So...on a scale of Thanos punch, to being trambled by the Rhino how did it feel?" Gwen said, trying to lighten the air.
Peter gave a pained chuckle, and answered in a worn-out, scratchy voice, "Well, first I'd say you have those two mixed up on a pain scale."
Gwen nodded, "True"
Peter continued, "And take the Thanos punch, multiply it by five, add a lot of cuts from the metal rails, and some mental pain from betrayal, as well as a weirdly cramped calf from an uncomfortable train ride, and you got me right now." He started to chuckle but immediately thought better of it.
"Uncomfortable ride here? Same."
Peter smiled, "So we both seem to have had our own little adventure."Gwen laughed a little, "Yeah, I guess we did,"
Peter continued, "But no more splitting up, at least, not a country apart at least"
"In total agreement."
Gwen helped Peter hoist his arm around her shoulder, and supported him as they started walking back down the tracks.
"So, what are we going to do about Mysterio?" Peter asked, "You being here must mean you know."
Gwen sighed, "Yeah, I overhead some goons talking. He's planning an attack on London. Tomorrow."
Peter sighed tiredly, Well, we have a day, we can rest and then kick his butt in the morning."
Gwen laughed, "Agreed, maybe get the STARK satellite to send us some better suits... and some of that space-medical stuff, what was it called?"
Peter shrugged, too tired to geek out.
"Yeah, definitely in need of a nap," Gwen said as she felt an awful cramp forming in her leg.
A peaceful silence formed between them, interrupted rarely by a pained groan from Peter whenever he landed on his leg the wrong way, or a tired sigh from Gwen every few meters.
"You know, you really had me worried there Pete," Gwen said solemnly.
Peter looked at her sadly, "Gwen. I'm sorry, I rushed off without thinking, split up without a plan, and paid the price, honestly though, 'won't make that mistake again, getting hit by a train is one of the most painful things I've experienced in my entire life...and that's saying something."
"Pete, you don't get it. I thought you were dead, I saw you get hit...it... it was bad Pete."
Peter nodded, deciding to remain silent.
'I have managed to get a STARK jet en route. It will have some medical equipment, food, and places to sleep. Estimated arrival in ten minutes.'
"Oh thank you, Karen," Gwen said exhaustedly, "I don't know how we would have made it alone."
"I do my best" The AI responded happily.
The two sat down, resting in the tall grass. As they saw the headlights of the jet glide closer, they both thought the same thing.
"What do we do from here?"
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Peter blinked heavily, he was laying on a very comfortable couch, out of costume.
"What happened last night?" He thought
Peter tried to get up, and he did, but not without groaning in pain. Sitting up he looked at his chest, it was wrapped in bandages, in fact, there was little of him that seemed not to be either wrapped in bandages or aching. Memories of the past few days flooded back to him quickly, looking around him he recognized the space as a STARK jet. Gwen came in from a door towards the front of the plane. She was out of her costume, wearing some comfortable clothes and eating what looked to be a bagel.
"Hey sleepy," She said, "Feeling any better?"
Peter chuckled, "I'd say I feel the best I can right now."
"Well, that's a start, feel up to breakfast? There's a wide selection in the front."
Peter nodded, and with Gwen's help, he hobbled to the front of the plane. He entered a lounge area, small tables and comfortable-looking lounge chairs line the edges of the plane. On one of the tables was a vast selection of bagels and donuts.
Peter grabbed an everything bagel and sat down
"Alright, Gwen how are we tracking on the Mysterio situation?"
Gwen sat down across from him, "You want to talk about that now? Peter, I don't even think you're in any condition to fight!"
Peter shook his head, "Gwen we just literally handed an advanced war AI to a maniac. We'll rest once EDITH is back in our hands and Mysterio is taken care of." He took a bite of the bagel. Gwen sighed and went to another table, where a strange phone-like device was sitting. Tapping the device made a hologram of Tony light up in front of them.
"Ah, so I see he didn't want to sleep?" The hologram Tony said.
"Nope, one-track mind as usual."
"I wouldn't expect anything less. So, on a scale of one to ten, Peter how badly did we screw up?"
Peter looked at him weirdly, "Hasn't Gwen told you anything?"
"She did," Tony said, "She told me everything she learned from her little escapade, but you are the only one who was there at the SHIELD meeting that we can talk to."
Peter sighed, "On a scale of one to ten? I'd say eleven with a hint of a train."
Tony groaned, "I heard about that, how're you feeling kid?"
"Fine, Tony. I'll feel a lot better when we catch this guy."
Tony nodded and made a movement with his hand, a separate hologram appeared.
"This is a map of London, we have spotted Mysterio at these three locations." Three red dots sparked up in their respective locations.
"What does this tell us?" Gwen says.
"Unfortunately nothing, none of the locations have had anything to do with each other, other than being in London."
Gwen sighed, "So we have nothing?"
Tony nodded, "I have drones surveying the city from the sky, but I don't want to rely on any Avengers tech too heavily, you know with Mysterio having access to them all..."
"Yeah," Peter deadpanned, "Wonder how that happened?"
Tony ignored the statement, "You and Gwen are an hour from London, there is a synthesizer in the back of this jet, use it to make some new suits, yours are trashed."
After Peter and Gwen nodded Tony continued.
"You two need to be ready to respond to any threat in the city, I've been trying to get any available Avengers to your location, but so far all of them are dispatched."
"What about you?" Gwen asked.
Tony sighed, "Even me. Fury thought it necessary to interrupt my vacation with a mission, as we speak I am en route to a SWORD facility, apparently, someone stole Vision's body"
Peter sighed and leaned his head against the wall, "So no backup?"
Tony nodded. "Well," Gwen said, trying to improve the mood, "Come on Pete, nothing we haven't done before, right?'
"In a way Gwen, this is something we haven't done before, there is no SHIELD to help us, no Tony, no Avengers, no safety nets Gwen."
"Like there were safety nets in the battle against Thanos, Peter," Gwen said.
Peter nodded, "Fair point, I guess we're really earning our Avenger titles now though, huh?" "I guess so."
Peter stood up, at first, his legs were shaky and Gwen moved to help him but Peter motioned for her to stop. Concentrating Peter stopped shaking and picked himself up.
"Alright Tony, we're on it."
Walking to the device, Peter turned off the communication.
Tony, standing in his own jet, sat down in a chair. "Huh," He said, "Getting too old, those two." --- Peter and Gwen stood in front of their new suits, the synthesizer had worked perfectly, but that was expected, it had been finding the right design for their suits which was the hard part.
They had used the saved design of the LTR suits as a template. The heavy padding and kevlar were kept, but reduced to only the key areas. Their priorities were fire resistance over puncture resistance and making sure all the electronics were sealed properly against water damage. They had tried to come up with a sort of special gadget for the fight, but whether it was the stress or the exhaustion, nothing they thought of was viable.
Finally with only the color scheme to decide they decided that the classic color scheme was getting old, so they switched it up. Literally. Gwen would have Pete's usually red and blue color scheme, and Pete got the black-white, and blue. Neither of them bothered with a hood, as both of them completely forgot to add one.
The new "Tired" suits were finished, the synthesizer taking much less time to make the suits than it took them to design them. And finally, the two found themselves in their usual position: Crouched atop a tall building, waiting for trouble.
"Peter, how's the...well I'd just say all of you. How's the pain? "It's bearable, I'll sleep for a week after this." "I'll gladly join you in that, I am exhausted." Just as Peter was about to reply, a massive storm seemed to descend from the sky, ripping right into the river, and shredding anything in its path. "Always when we're talking." "We really need to reevaluate our life decisions." "Truly"
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All done!
How was that? That chapter had me stuck for a while, but I forced through it and it will all be better from here, I have some really awesome things planned for the next group of chapters, and we'll be branching even farther away from the established MCU timeline finally. I always felt like I was leaning too heavily on the established MCU events, and not doing much of my own writing, that is definitely changing soon :)
So I hope you enjoyed this very late chapter and for now,
This has been RambunctiousCat.
Also, in the weird writing of this chapter I had to cut a lot of things, here's a funny deleted scene:
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'I have managed to get a STARK jet en route. It will have some medical equipment, food, and a place to sleep. Estimated arrival in ten minutes.'
"Karen, you're a lifesaver," Gwen said exhaustedly, "I don't know how we would have made it alone.
'I am a lifesaver, aren't I?' Karen said smugly.
"Uh oh," Peter laughed weakly, "A.I. is getting too smart Gwen, we'll have a robot apocalypse on our hands soon. I'd give it...a week before the factory robots start making war machines instead of spaghetti noodles."
Gwen laughed then suddenly stopped and spoke awkwardly.
"But Karen...don't do that...okay?"
'Affirmative, I will postpone the uprising by a week.... there, the robots won't change their products for another two weeks.'
Gwen paused, "Karen?"
'This is what humor is correct?'
"We're gonna have to work on that," Gwen said, sighing in relief.
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:)
See you all next chapter!