Spider-Man was getting tired. The four remaining Doombots were stepping up their attacks, and he was having trouble finding an opening to switch from defense to offense. He looked up and saw Doom's platform about to clear the rooftops and vanish out of sight.
Until it was struck by lightning.
The platform sparked and exploded, though Doom himself was protected by a force field. Dictators and burning wreckage fell to a rooftop. Spider-Man allowed himself an exhale, but remembered that Doom had placed the stolen files in a compartment in the dais, and stared as Carol's cure went up in smoke. His Spider-Sense kept his body moving, but his brain wasn't in the fight anymore.
He heard the sound of Wolverine's claws, felt the reverberations of the thunder as Mjolnir flew past, and none of it mattered.
He'd failed.
The fire burning on that rooftop was burning away the last shreds of his hope. Carol had put her faith in him, and he'd betrayed her. He wanted to fall, to stop moving. It felt worse than Gwen, in a way. Gwen had never asked for his help, never said, "Spider-Man, save me," in so many words. She was unconscious, and he just hadn't been fast enough. But Carol… she'd put her trust in him, to do the right thing, to get the job done, and he didn't. She was going to die, and it would be his fault.
The last of the Doombots fell, and Thor and Wolverine walked over to him. "We must catch Dr. Doom," Thor said, picking up Wolverine. "Come, Spider-Man. We must make haste!"
The god of thunder flew toward the wreckage, and Spider-Man swung behind, his movements mechanical, automatic. They landed next to the trashed platform, and Thor swirled Mjolnir to create a small wind tunnel, sucking the oxygen away from the flames. Spider-Man pushed past and examined the wreckage, searching for any remnants of the pages. He found the compartment, split in two, the door hanging open, scorch marks marring the metal. That was it, then. They were gone, burned away.
Wait, he thought, there are burn marks on the inside of the door, but no ash, no burning paper flying around us.
"That son of a bitch," Spider-Man said, standing. He turned to his fellow Avengers and looked to Wolverine. "Doom took the pages before the crash. Let's sniff him out, Scooby."
Wolverine smelled the air, let his instincts separate the different scents around him. He filtered out the burning metal, the God-awful smell of the Hudson River, the hot dog vendor three blocks down; finally, he found what he was looking for: burning fabric, the faint hint of oil lubricating moving parts. "This way," he said, taking off on a run across the rooftops. "And just so we're clear, bub," he said, looking to Spider-Man, "If you ever call me that again, I'll gut you myself before we ever find Doom."
Spider-Man smiled as he flipped over an air vent. "Aww," he said, "I was gonna grow a goatee and start calling myself Shaggy. Think about it: Steve could be Fred, Natasha could be Daphne…"
"Maintain focus, comrades," Thor yelled down from above them. "The vile Doctor must not have run far, and Mjolnir would much enjoy striking down such a foe."
Blue light flashed from between two of the buildings and hit Thor, knocking the thunder god out of the sky. "Would it, now?" Doom said, rising from the alleyway, the runes lining his gauntlets glowing with magical power. "Did you think Doom unprepared for your compatriots, Spider-Man?"
With a roar, Thor shot off the ground and charged Doom, who didn't flinch. "For Asgard!" Thor yelled, Mjolnir crackling with lightning as the god of thunder brought it down toward Doom's head.
Just before the hammer struck him, Doom stepped to the side and grabbed the handle with his right hand, then put his left to Thor's face, where he released another flash of blue magic. Thor cried out and fell, his hammer dropping to the roof. Doom remained where he was, Mjolnir laying at his feet. "You haven't even brought anyone worthy of facing me," he said.
Wolverine popped his claws and charged, diving and slashing at Doom. Sparks flew as the adamantium clashed with Doom's reinforced armor, and Wolverine landed a kick that forced Doom to take a step back. Spider-Man leaped into the fray, webbing Doom's feet in place, then striking at the armored face. He worked in tandem with Wolverine, their strikes and swipes and stabs executed with perfection. Both heroes worked on instinct, and their instincts kept them aware of where the other would be.
And none of it mattered.
Doom laughed as he pulled his feet free of the rooftop, and grabbed Wolverine before the mutant could react. "Away with you, dog," Doom said, hurling him off the roof. Spider-Man heard his friend crash into a car six stories below, and knew it would be a few minutes before Wolverine's healing factor had him up and moving again.
"Foul Sorcerer!" Thor shouted as Mjolnir struck Doom in the side, sending the dictator flying.
"And that's a home run for the god of thunder!" Spider-Man said, before Thor dropped to his knees. The god's face was still smoldering, blue smoke trailing away and obscuring his features. "Thor," Spider-Man said, approaching him, "Are you alright? What did Doom do to you?"
Thor shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. "I am uncertain," he said, "It is difficult to see, and I feel disoriented. I fear he may have stuck me with some kind of withering spell, meant to sap my strength."
Creaking metal turned the heroes' heads toward the street, where Wolverine was working his way out of the hood of a Volvo. The mutant pulled a large piece of steel from his liver before popping his claws and scaling the wall. Once he was at the top, Wolverine took a moment to catch his breath before asking, "What are you guys doing? Did we catch Doom?"
Spider-Man smiled. "Nah, but Thor just smacked him into Harlem, so…"
"Then let's go get him," Wolverine said, "Before he wakes up and sic's a Thing-Buster Doombot on us or something."
The Avengers starting moving, but stopped quickly as Thor realized he couldn't fly. This set their pace back some, as Thor wasn't as agile or quick as Spider-Man or Wolverine, but they were still able to cover the distance without difficulty. Doom hadn't flown far, as Thor's body had been weakened by the spell, but as the heroes passed over his trajectory, the dictator was nowhere to be seen. The trio found the crater where he'd landed, but Doom must have maintained consciousness after the fall. Wolverine started sniffing, but was having trouble catching a scent. He was afraid Doom was masking it somehow.
"Hey, guys, need a hand?" came a hollow, metallic, and still somehow cocky voice from the sky.
Spider-Man looked up to see Iron Man floating a few feet above them. "Hell, yes," he said, gesturing for Iron Man to join them on the rooftop. "We need to track down Dr. Doom. We lost his trail here."
Metal clanked on the roof as the Armored Avenger landed, the air humming as his repulsors cooled down. "Straight to the point, Web-Head? That's not normally you're style. Where's the funny?" Iron Man held up his left arm, and a holographic interface hovered over his forearm, into which he pressed several icons.
"Doom has committed a crime most foul," Thor said, still trying to shake off the lingering effects of Doom's magic. "He has stolen the papers that hold the cure for Captain Marvel's ailment!"
Iron Man turned on Spider-Man. "Doom stole yo—Peter Parker's research?" he said, catching himself before revealing Peter's secret identity.
"Yeah, and we need to get it back, so can you make with the scanning already?" Spider-Man replied, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Every moment they stood there jawing was another moment Doom got further away with those files.
With some beeps and clicks, and an internal conversation between Tony and J.A.R.V.I.S., Iron Man pointed to the northwest. "There's a huge mobile energy signature heading in that direction," he said.
Spider-Man followed the trail, thinking of the landmarks he knew so well that were along the route. He cursed when he realized where Doom was going. "Tony, grab Thor. He still can't fly because Doom hit him with a magic whammy," he said before turning to Wolverine. "Logan, buddy, this isn't gonna be comfy, but we need to move fast." Spider-Man picked up his friend and slung the mutant over his shoulder.
"Where's Doom heading, Spidey?" Iron Man asked.
"The Latverian Embassy," he replied. "If he gets there, we're gonna have serious trouble getting to him. It's his soil, it could spark an international incident if we try to take him down there. Not to mention he's got God-knows-what tucked away in that mini-castle waiting for some half-wit superhero to try."
The Avengers flew off the rooftop, making their way toward the energy signature Iron Man had found. They saw it soon enough: a navy blue van, New York plates, nothing out of the ordinary outside of no windows, which was relatively normal for delivery vehicles. Clearly it was something Doom had stolen to facilitate his escape. Iron Man and Thor landed in front of the vehicle, Iron Man stopping its forward momentum with his foot while Mjolnir smashed the engine block. "There's no driver," Iron Man called as Spider-Man and Wolverine landed at the back of the van. "Doom probably rigged some nanites to drive the vehicle along a set GPS route while he sat in the back."
"Then let's end this!" Wolverine said, unsheathing his claws and moving to rip open the back doors.
His Spider-Sense was a few seconds slow on the tingle, probably because he wasn't close enough to be in any real danger. "Logan, stop!" he called, but he was too late. Wolverine stabbed his claws into the metal and was shocked with thousands of volts of electricity. The mutant screamed, but the sound was drowned out in Spider-Man's mind by the sudden and invasive smell of barbeque and a lot of burning hair. Wolverine managed to retract his claws, and his body fell to the street. Spider-Man rushed over to help his friend, and worried that Logan might actually be hurt this time. His skin looked like Deadpool's on any given Sunday, but Peter knew the internal damage had to be much worse because of Logan's adamantium skeleton. For being the hardest substance on Earth, adamantium still conducted electricity. Logan was going to be down for a while.
Thor rushed around to the backside of the van and grabbed the doors, letting the electricity course through him. While it might have put Logan down, all that energy was going to be just the boost the god of thunder needed. Thor ripped the doors off their hinges and raised Mjolnir, ready to strike down Dr. Doom. Instead, the heroes were met with an impressive array of cables, along with enough now-drained power cells to juice a Quinjet for a decade. In the back sat a lone screen with Doom's masked face on it. When Doom saw Spider-Man, he crossed his fingers in front of his face. A live feed, then. "Avengers. An audience with Doom is not so easily earned."
"Where the hell are you, Doom?" Spider-Man asked, venom dripping from his voice.
"In my home, in Latveria. My Castle Doomstadt."
Spider-Man turned to Iron Man. "Tony. Trace the signal. This is a live feed, it's coming from somewhere. He can't have made it back to Eastern Europe."
"You doubt Doom's word? Very well, trace my signal, though you will find Doom does not lie often."
As Tony turned away from the van, talking to J.A.R.V.I.S. again, Spider-Man turned back to the screen. "Why take Parker's research, Doom? What was he working on that's so important to you?"
The image on the screen didn't move an inch, and Peter had to wonder if it had lagged, or if Doom had set it to loop. "The better question is 'Why would I not?'"
Peter had a great answer for this one. It played right into Doom's egomania. "Because he's a nothing. He's a nothing scientist, just some punk kid working in a think tank. What could the great 'Dr. Doom' want with him?" Peter tried to keep the sincerity out of his voice. It didn't work.
"True enough," Doom said, "But the boy does have some talent. Deciphered some interesting facts about Captain Marvel, and, I assume as a result, was given a project with actual worth."
For lack of a more present option, Spider-Man tried to grab Mjolnir from Thor's grasp and hurl it at the screen. Thor held on to the hammer, and instead grabbed his friend by the shoulder.
"I've got him," Iron Man said, turning back to the van. From somewhere on the ground, Wolverine groaned. "He wasn't kidding. He's back in Latveria."
Goddamn magic.
Peter turned back to the screen. If he could have seen Doom's face, he was sure there would be a smirk on whatever disfigurement loomed underneath. A smirk that Spider-Man desperately wanted to beat out of him. "Doom," he said, "I am going to give you one chance, and once chance only, to magic those papers back here."
In response, Doom held up a set of the papers: Carol's file. The one that wouldn't benefit him in any way. With a glow from his gauntlet, the pages caught fire in his hand. Peter watched as they burned, felt his rage growing with every ounce of ash that flew from Doom's hand.
"God help you when I find you, Doom," he said.
"You had a god with you today, Spider-Man. How did that turn out?" Doom said just before he cut the feed.
Spider-Man felt a metallic hand on his shoulder, but he shoved it off. "Spidey," Tony said, his mask raised. Peter turned around and grabbed the doors Thor had ripped off the van, then threw them into the vehicle, smashing the screen and the empty power cells. With an inhuman roar, Spider-Man then picked up the van and hurled it into the East River.
Peter turned back to his friends. Logan was looking a bit better, some of the skin was healing from the burns, some of his hair was growing back. He picked up the mutant and placed him in Thor's arms, then turned and scaled the nearest building. At the top, he started swinging, his eyes set on Avengers Tower in the distance.