Jessica Drew, Natasha Romanoff, and Clint Barton were walking the halls of Avengers Tower when the front door caved in. In an instant, pistols were drawn, arrows were nocked, and venom blasts were charged. The weapons lowered when they saw that the person coming through the doors was Spider-Man.
"Hey, Spidey," Jessica said, "what're you doing here? I figured you'd still be cooped up in your lab."
Peter yanked off his mask and walked past them. The three of them exchanged worried looks. Spider-Man not talking? Something was wrong.
They followed him into the common room, where more Avengers were sitting, resting between Earth-shattering events. Cage sat with his wife, watching their daughter play with some toys on the carpet; Iron Fist stood off to the side, half-watching Cage's family, half-engaged in a conversation with Mockingbird; and Cap was sitting at a small table, sipping a cup of coffee.
When Peter saw Steve sitting there, looking like he had not a care in the world, his temper boiled over. "You!" he yelled, charging Cap and slamming him against the wall before Steve had a chance to react. "Where were you?!"
The other Avengers in the room stood in stunned silence, though Clint and Natasha had their weapons drawn again. Cap made a gesture, and they put them down. He could tell Peter was angrier with himself than he was with anyone else.
"Where were any of you?!" Peter turned to the rest of them, lowering Cap to the ground. "I send out the S.O.S., 'Avengers Assemble' and all that, and who comes to help me? Wolverine and Thor. Iron Man showed up there at the end, but I think he might have just been flying by."
"Peter," Steve said, placing his hand on Spider-Man's shoulder. "What happened?"
"Doom! Doom happened!" Peter screamed, throwing Steve's hand away. "He attacked my lab! He stole my research, Steve!"
The rest of the team gasped. They all knew that Peter was working on a cure for Carol. The specifics, however, what he'd found, and what he'd been given, had stayed between Peter and Steve.
Cap stared at him, and Peter could see the wheels turning in his head again. "We should speak about this privately," he said, gesturing for Peter to follow him.
But Peter wasn't about to receive another pep talk. He'd failed, he knew it, and he had no interest in Steve trying to cheer him up or tell him it wasn't his fault. This was something he needed to fix on his own. "No," he said. "You know what? Clearly my presence on this team isn't valued." Just then Thor and Iron Man walked in, carrying a still-unconscious Wolverine. "Thank you, Thor, and Logan, if you can hear me, for answering the call when I needed you. Tony, I'm not sure if you heard me or were just passing by, but thank you too, I guess."
Peter took his Avengers I.D. card out of the small pocket he had on the inside of his costume. "But I'm done," he said, throwing the card on the ground. "I work better on my own anyway." Peter walked away, toward his room in the tower. Several of the other heroes tried to call after him, but Steve ordered them down. Quietly, however, the squeaking of small wheels was heard coming down the opposite hallway. As the figure entered the common room, all of the Avengers, save Cap, were on their feet and nearly shouting, but Steve ordered them down again. "This one needs to happen," he said.
XXXXXX
Rummaging through his closet, Peter found what he was looking for: His belt of extra web fluid. It was rare that he wore it into battle anymore, as he'd refined his fluid more and more since his teenage years to last longer, and grant more time before he ran out and had to replace a cartridge. He stood, pulling off the red-and-blues. He stared into the closet for a moment, then grabbed the black suit off the rack. It wasn't the symbiote, he could never go back to that, (though he admitted that the power boost it gave him wouldn't hurt), but there was something about it that made his anger feel like a strength instead of a weakness. The black suit funneled his rage in a more potent direction, let him use it as a weapon. He wanted that, then. He checked his web shooters, made sure they were full, fired a few web lines to ensure they were functioning properly. He pulled the gloves on over them, then put on the belt, and finally the pants and boots. All that was missing was the mask, which he could put on during the walk to the Quinjet he was planning to take whether someone gave him permission or not.
What he didn't expect to see, when he turned to walk out his door, was Carol, standing at her full height, rolling her I.V. along with her.
It was the first time he'd seen her since he started working on her cure, the first time he'd really seen what was happening to her. Her face was drawn, and pale, and the dark circles he'd seen beneath her eyes had now become bags. She looked withered, like a plant that had been left out in the heat without water. But her eyes were still as sharp and blue as ever, and the fire that was there had not diminished; no, in fact, it had grown brighter.
Peter's first reaction was one of concern. "Carol," he said, tossing the black mask aside, "What are you doing? You need to get back in bed, you shouldn't be…"
He was interrupted by her slapping him across the face.
She may not have had the full use of her powers, but damn if that didn't hurt. Why hadn't his Spider-Sense warned him?
"Take it off," she said.
Peter wasn't sure what she was talking about. He assumed she might be exhausted or delirious, or screwed up by whatever medication they were giving her to numb the pain. He reached for her again, to lead her out of the doorway. "Carol, we really need to get you…"
She slapped him again. Ok, that time there was definitely some super strength in there. What the hell, Spider-Sense?
"Take it off," she repeated, her voice sterner than before.
Peter looked down at himself, and realized she was talking about his costume. She didn't like his black suit, mostly because she'd been taken over by Venom at one point and had her mind and powers used against her. But that conversation had yielded some… interesting information, hadn't it?
After Carol's possession, Venom had told Peter he could sense how she felt about him. He'd assumed it was a trick, Venom trying to get into his head, but then he'd brought it up to her after the fight, and she'd told him what Venom had seen was, quote, "Complicated." It was enough to get him thinking about it, to question how he felt about her.
He and Carol had never had the best relationship. It wasn't rocky, so to speak; for a relationship to be rocky, two people generally had to be in one of some kind, friendship or otherwise. They knew of each other, of course, had fought on the same side during those end of the world things the Avengers tackled once a month, but they'd never had much one-on-one interaction.
Until the aftermath of the Civil War. Cap was dead, Registration had won, and Carol was leading her own team of Avengers. Spidey and co. in the New Avengers were on the run, trying to help people as much as possible without getting caught by the new authorities. Then the Skrulls invaded, and somehow, in a horrible twist of Parker luck, Norman Osborn came out the other side the B.M.O.C. Carol abandoned the government-sanctioned Avengers when Osborn took over, and came to the New Avengers for shelter. Most of the team remembered how doggedly she'd defended Registration during the Civil War, how she'd been instrumental in hunting down and locking up some of their friends. To say they were less than willing to accept her into their ranks was an understatement. But Peter saw in her genuine repentance, a desire to try to make right what she'd done, and he vouched for her to the rest of the team. "If she screws us over, it's on me," he'd said. "You can kick me out and I'll go take my mask off right in front of J. Jonah Jameson."
They'd become friends after that, finding in common a shared love of science fiction movies and good street vendor food, as well as lives filled with terrible tragedies. Her first love had been murdered by Mystique, his stolen by Norman Osborn. Her mind and powers had been taken by Rogue, he'd been cloned (multiple times) and buried alive while Kraven the Hunter murdered criminals in his costume. She'd been mind-controlled and raped by the time traveler Marcus, then birthed his child in a week, which then grew into Marcus himself. Peter… well, Peter didn't really have anything on that one.
Now he was standing there in front of her, wearing a reminder of yet another time her mind had been taken and used against her. He still wanted to be angry. He wanted to rage against Doom, and the other Avengers, and God; but his guilt overrode his anger, and he turned away from Carol to start pulling off the black costume.
The gloves came first; he threw them into the closet. He detached his web shooters and set them on the end of the bed. Sitting down there, he buried his face in his hands for a second before running them through his hair. "Carol," he said, staring at his feet. "I'm so sorry."
She took a step into the room, the squeak of the tiny wheels on her I.V. echoing in the hall. "For what?"
"Because I let you down," Peter replied, popping up from the bed. He started pacing the room, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You trusted me to find a cure, and instead Dr. Doom steals some of the most important papers in the world from me and I let him get away to Latveria."
Carol took another step toward him. Leaning against the I.V., she reached out with her free hand and raised his chin. "When was the last time you slept?" she asked.
He stood there for a moment, his eyebrows upturned, a small smile on his lips. Her hand was warm on his face, and he felt that warmth radiate through his body. "Don't worry about me," he said, pulling her arm down, "You need to be resting."
"I'll worry about whoever I damn well please, thank you very much," she said, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. "And I've been resting enough."
She walked over to the closet, grabbing the spare red-and-blues and laying them out on the bed. "Now," she said, raising her fist, "You either change out of that monstrosity, or I will use every last watt of energy in my body to burn it off of you."
Peter sighed, and Carol turned around, promising not to peek. But she caught glimpses in the mirror, and took in the musculature of his back, his shoulders, his arms. What she eyed the most, however, were the caverns in his body, miniature canyons that marred the landscape of his flesh. Several were small and circular, but most were long and jagged; or tiny and straight, but numerous, the evidence of shrapnel; or the discolored flesh of burns. His arms were worse than his back, and Carol honestly believed the man had more scar tissue on his upper body than he did original skin.
What was worse, she knew those scars shouldn't be there. She'd sparred with him more times than she could remember, and the one thing she was certain of was that the only time he got hit was when he allowed it to happen. Fast as she was, she could never out-strip his Spider-Sense. Which meant that every single one of those scars was a time he'd ignored it to protect someone else.
It broke her heart.
"Peter," she said, looking away from the mirror.
"You peeked, didn't you?" he said. "Ok, just promise not to tell Logan about my Rainbow Dash tattoo. My Brony life is my secret-secret identity."
She laughed, but the laughing made her cough. Peter was at her side in an instant, trying to move her, to get her to stand so they could go back to the medical wing, but she pushed him away. She coughed for a minute more before she regained her composure. Looking at him, she saw he'd pulled the red and blue shirt and pants back on. She put her hand on the spider in the center of his chest. "Peter," she said, "Promise me you won't leave the team." She looked up from the spider to the man. "We need you."
He grabbed her hand with both of his. "No, Carol, they need you. They need somebody who can handle the type of things the Avengers face: alien invasions and angry gods and time travelers." He turned away from her and started putting on his boots. "They don't need someone who faces down Galactus with bad puns."
"That's exactly what they need," she said, turning him back toward her. She pressed her hand agaisnt the spider emblem again, feeling his heartbeat through the costume. "They need this Spider-Man, the one who laughs and smiles and reminds them how, even through all the bad they've endured, there's good on the other side. Even if it's just the bad humor of a friend."
He shook his head. "I failed you. You could be dead in the next few days and the only lead I have on a cure is sitting in a dictator's castle. I don't deserve to be here."
"I've never met anyone who deserved it more," she replied.
Peter looked up at her, saw the sincerity in her face. She believed in him. Even now, after all of his failures, after failing her in the worst way he could imagine, she was not only supporting him, but encouraging him. She was reminding him that he still had a place, that he was valued.
Her eyes shone when he looked into them, and she smiled that smile again, the one with one side higher than the other. He loved that smile, not because it reminded him of Gwen, but because he put it there. He loved making her smile.
God, he wanted so much more. To say so much more, to do so much more, to be so much more.
His hand covered hers on his chest again. "Carol," he said, grabbing her elbow, pulling her closer to him.
"Hey, Webs," came a call from the hallway. Peter jumped away from Carol like he'd been fired from a gun, and turned to his door to see a blistered and still smelling of barbeque Logan walking into his doorway. "Just wanted to let you know, it was my fault nobody else came," he said. "I accidentally sent the feed from your message to all the I.D. cards in the tower instead of all the cards, period. The only ones who heard your S.O.S. were me, Thor, and Carol." Logan held up Peter's I.D. card. "Just in case you want it back," he said, placing it on the dresser.
Carol and Peter looked at each other as Logan's shuffling footsteps echoed down the hall. She pulled herself up from his bed with her I.V. stand and walked over to his card. Picking it up, she turned back to him and placed it in his hand. "You've never failed me, Peter. I don't expect you to start doing it now."
She started walking down the hall, but Peter scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the common room. The other Avengers were still there, talking amongst themselves. As he walked through, Peter turned his head to them and said, "Owe you guys a big apology, super-sorry, didn't mean to act like a jerk, I'm still on the team, why's everybody groaning, Cap let's have that chat in a minute."
Carol laughed as they walked down the next hall toward medical. "Why are you carrying me around like this?" she asked.
"Simple. I'm your doctor, and I'm recommending you get plenty of rest, drink fluids regularly, and don't over-exert yourself. This includes allowing your favorite Spider-Man to carry you back to your bed."
Carol smiled. "You do know you're not actually a doctor, right?"
"Why do people keep reminding me of that?!"
She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. "But thanks for looking out for me," she said.
Peter smiled. "Always."