Carol awoke to an aching in her calves. She looked through the lashes of her left eye and found that her legs were dangling over the armrest on the side of the love seat. A thin white blanket had been tossed over her, and she heard her hair rustling a slip of paper behind her head. She reached back and found a sticky note on the armrest that was serving as her pillow; it read: “You’re welcome for that crick that’s not in your back. –Jess.”
She curled her knees, bringing her feet off the edge, and rolled over to face the back of the sofa. Her eyes opened halfway as she turned her head to glance at Peter. He was on the other side of the room, now, silhouetted against the nighttime lights of Manhattan piercing the translucent curtains; apparently the love seat had been moved after she fell asleep. He was still unconscious, the tubes still funneling their way into his mouth, though the heart monitor beeped a slower, steadier rhythm. They’d removed the bandages from around his knuckles, but the ones around his left arm and head remained.
Carol turned her head back toward the rear of the couch, sighing into the material. It was cool against her forehead, and little comfort, but she hoped it would be enough to get her through what she feared was the first of many nights there. She blinked backwards several times, and could feel the wavy haze of sleep washing over her mind just as the dull glow of purple light shined into the room.
She turned her head back around, not opening her eyes at first, and listened. “My golden opportunity has arrived,” the man said, the room echoing the hollow sound of his metallic footsteps. “The Avengers are hobbled. Their precious tower is powerless, Captain America is gravely injured, Captain Marvel is dead, and Spider-Man lies comatose before me.” The voice snapped her awake, sweat beading on her forehead as adrenaline rushed through her veins. She sat up, throwing the white blanket off herself, and saw the city lights glinting off the green-and-purple armor of the man standing over Peter. A large knife was in his hand, and he was lowering it toward Peter’s throat. “Today is a day unlike any other,” the man said, “For today, starting here, the Avengers fall, and my conquest of this era…”
“Kang!” Carol screamed, slamming her shoulder into the time travelling villain and sending him flying. “Stay away from him!” She turned to Peter, her hands gently shifting his head, checking for more injuries. It seemed that he was no worse for wear, and Carol exhaled a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She brushed some hair out of the way before placing a short kiss on his forehead. She turned back to Kang just as he fired a blast from a large cannon he’d pulled from the time-stream.
Carol jumped in front of the beam, felt the energy absorb into and rejuvenate her cells. She focused, and her uniform materialized, replacing her white t-shirt and yoga pants. When the smoke and dust settled, Captain Marvel stood between Kang and his prey. “Not quite as dead as you thought, huh?”
“Impossible!” Kang said, lowering the futuristic weapon. “The historical record… Spider-Man failed! He wasn’t…"
“Don’t you dare,” Carol cut him off, her eyes flaring almost white. “Don’t you dare say he wasn’t good enough.” She floated through the hole in the wall, until she was hovering only inches from Kang. “I’m going to give you one chance run away back through your little time portal before I break every bone in your body.”
A smile crossed Kang’s lips, and he kicked out, catching Carol in the stomach and throwing her back into Peter’s room. “You overreach yourself,” Kang said. “I am not some foolish supervillain or petty criminal. I am Kang the Conqueror; I have ruled more realms and timelines than you can imagine.” He raised the cannon again, readied it to fire. “And I will not be denied this one.”
Just before Kang pulled the trigger, a giant green hand encompassed his head and hurled him through the wall and into the elevator shaft. Metal clanked against metal as Kang fell to the bottom floor, but the sound was drowned out by the Hulk’s howl of rage. “Hulk!” Carol said, running back out into the hallway, “Am I glad to see you.”
“Hulk smash Kang!” Hulk replied.
“Sure thing, big guy,” she said, following Hulk to the elevators. The Green Goliath ripped open the doors and dropped into the shaft with a roar. “But let’s get everyone in on this action, huh?” she said, flying down after him. She pressed the yellow star emblem in the center of her chest, and it flashed once. “Avengers Assemble!”
Carol switched elevator shafts, as her flight allowed her to move faster than gravity could pull her down. She passed Hulk, who was forced to smash his way through the car in order to keep falling. As she flew, she noticed that one of the lines appeared to be getting thinner, and then she saw Kang, slowing his fall by gripping the cable. Her voice tore out of her as she remembered him with that knife to Peter’s throat, ready to slaughter him like an animal, let him bleed out on the floor while she slept on a sofa.
She crashed into Kang, slamming them through the elevator doors and into the lobby. They scraped across the floor, ceramic tiles shattering and shooting across the room. The golden statue of the team seemed to stand in judgment in what little light seeped through from the surrounding buildings, and fluorescents flickered as the arc reactor still struggled to restore power to the tower.
Kang rolled several feet and stood, his legs shaking, his armor sparking in several places. Carol floated above him, the brightness of her eyes and hands illuminating half of the room. He was about to speak when the second set of elevator doors exploded outward, and the Hulk bounded through them, Iron Man, Thor, and Spider-Woman just behind him. Kang’s mouth opened again, but the last elevator dinged an upbeat chime, and Cap stepped out, leading Wolverine, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.
“Avengers!” Kang called, stretching his arms wide. “Just as I expected. It is my honor to welcome you to what will be the epicenter of my new conquest.” He turned his hands over, and a small portal appeared, into which he inserted his right arm. When it returned, his arm was covered by a singular weapon: alien, covered in triangular ridges and glowing purple. “Do you know what this is, fools? It is called Tactigon. It adapts to my opponents, discovers their weaknesses and exploits them. One of my more… recent discoveries.”
“Hulk not weak, Hulk strongest one there is!” Hulk shouted, charging forward, arms raised and ready to smash Kang into the dirt. The conqueror, however, simply raised his weapon and fired. A beam of purple energy shot out of the weapon, colliding with the Hulk with little force, but dropping the green giant to the ground all the same. The heroes watched, breathless, as Hulk slowly shrunk back down into Bruce Banner, who was left seizing on the floor from the forced transformation.
“Avengers!” Cap said, ducking behind a column, careful not to further damage his wrapped ribs. “Split up and keep moving! The weapon has to target you before he can take you out! Don’t give him the chance!”
Kang turned the weapon, heard it click, and fired. The purple beam struck Thor in the chest, and lightning crashed through the windows, striking the god and transforming him into Donald Blake. Mjolnir dropped to the ground, cracking the tile, and before Blake could move to touch the hammer Kang charged and kneed him in the jaw, knocking him unconscious.
Carol bolted around the lobby, maintaining as much altitude as she could in the high-ceilinged room. Two of our strongest down and we’ve barely made a move.
Several arrows flew out of a shadowed corner, hitting the weapon and pinning it to the floor. Natasha stepped out from behind a pillar and started firing her guns. The bullets bounced off of Kang’s armor, but his face was contorted with rage as he failed to lift the Tactigon weapon. “I don’t need this to defeat you two!” he shouted, the alien machine releasing its hold on his right arm. Kang stood, raising his arms toward the spies, and lances of purple energy flew out of his fingertips. They managed to dodge, but the force of the impact sent them careening into the wall.
Kang kicked the arrows free and jammed his arm back into the weapon, only for Carol to hit him from behind, hurling the conqueror into another marble column. Stone crumbled off his shoulders as Kang pushed himself out of the pillar’s base, but Tony flew in and slammed Kang’s head back into it. However, Kang pointed the Tactigon behind his back, firing as soon as he heard the targeting confirmation. The light in Tony’s arc reactor blinked out, and the Armored Avenger fell to his knees, gasping for breath. Kang took the opportunity to kick Iron Man to the floor.
Cage, Iron Fist and Wolverine all charged as one, Cage pulling two quick Fastball Specials, the first with Logan and the second with Danny. Kang had enough time to fire at Logan, but missed, and the mutant’s adamantium claws sliced through the shoulder of Kang’s already damaged armor. Spurts of blood ran down the shining purple surface of the metal, and Kang howled in pain. He raised the weapon with his bleeding arm and took aim, firing just before Danny struck him. All the light faded from the Iron Fist, and when Danny connected, the audible cracking was nearly enough to drown out the pain of his fingers shattering against Kang’s armor.
Wolverine tried to strike again, but Kang caught him in the face with an armored fist, shooting Logan across the room and into the reception desk. Papers and woodchips went flying as he crashed through. Kang raised the Tactigon and was about to fire at Wolverine when Cage tackled him to the ground, landing several punches on the villain’s face before Kang threw him free. Cage soared, crashing into the ceiling and raining glass down on the heroes.
“Your efforts are useless, Avengers!” Kang said. “I have witnessed the future. I am the future!”
“You are a blowhard,” Jess said, firing a venom blast into his eyes as she flipped over his head. Kang’s head snapped back, and he was forced to brace his legs to keep himself from falling. Jess didn’t move fast enough to dodge his retaliation, however, and the force from his gauntlet threw her through the building’s front doors and out into the street.
“Jess!” Carol shouted, flying toward her friend, but Kang fired an energy blast, cutting her off. She turned back around in time to see him hit Wolverine with the Tactigon, and Logan fell to the ground screaming as his healing factor stopped working, blood seeping out of his knuckles, the metal on his bones now poisoning him from the inside out. She bolted toward Kang, ready to end this fight, but he caught her with another energy blast, flash-burning her eyes, and she crashed to the floor. Carol tried to look up, but her vision was too blurred. She saw what she thought was Luke Cage fall as Kang shot him with the weapon. He strolled over to the form and kicked it several times, and Carol heard the cracking of bones beneath what was once unbreakable skin.
Kang turned back to Carol, pulled his arm back and punched her across the jaw. Her vision swam further, but she fired a photon blast at the purple-and-green blob before her, and it flew back into another pillar. She heard him cry out, but not fall, and she knew that a shot from the Tactigon was coming. She tried to move, but Kang hit the ground in front of her with an energy blast, and the force threw her back several feet. She rolled on her shoulder, but he was on top of her in seconds. “And now, Ms. Marvel,” he said, raising the weapon on his right arm, “You with your stolen, unearned and useless title, will meet my retribution for your interruption.”
Carol heard a whistling in the air, and saw a red-and-white blob strike and deflect the weapon on Kang’s arm. The shield bounced up and away, and Kang turned in the direction from which it came. He saw Steve leaning against a pillar across the room, gripping at his ribs. Kang crossed the distance quickly, and Steve tried to duck away, but his injuries prevented him from moving with any speed. Cap slugged Kang once, then the villain gripped him by the throat and threw him to the ground. He cried out, but Kang kicked him in the face, and Steve fell unconscious.
The haze was fading, but in the darkness Carol still couldn’t quite make out where Kang was to hit him with another photon blast. Steve was about to be hit, probably killed, and she couldn’t stop it.
“Captain,” Kang said, raising the Tactigon again, “Tonight I will end this feeble team you have assembled, and on their bones I will build an empire that will stand…”
Overhead, Carol heard the hiss of pressurized air, and a voice, and her breath hitched in her throat. And she realized why Cap’s shield had never come back down.
“Gosh, I’m sorry,” Peter said from the side of a pillar, webbing both Kang and the weapon to the ground. Carol looked up at him as her vision finally cleared, and she knew. He was wearing the torn and tattered mask he had been in Doomstadt and his hospital gown, the front stained brown with vomit, probably from him pulling the tubes out of his throat. Cap’s shield was strapped to his back, and the web-shooters on his wrists glinted in the scant light from outside. “You were in the middle of a megalomaniacal speech. Please continue.”
Kang opened his mouth to speak, but another shot of webbing kept him silent.
“See, here’s your problem, Kang,” Peter said, landing in front of Carol. Whether he realized that the shield wasn’t covering the entirety of the opening in the back of his hospital gown or not, Carol wasn’t about to tell him. Or complain. “Big, fancy alien tech like that, yeah, it can neutralize the effects of gamma radiation or the X-Gene for a little while,” he said, gesturing to Bruce and Logan, “But do you know what it can’t do?”
Kang tore his way out of the webbing and stood, raising the weapon again.
“It can’t suddenly make a man unworthy,” Peter said. He fired a web line past Kang’s head, straight onto the outstretched hand of the stirring Donald Blake. He pulled, sliding Blake across the floor until his fingertips touched Mjolnir’s handle.
Lightning erupted in the room, crackling around the pillars and striking the golden statue. The god of thunder emerged from the maelstrom and hurled his hammer at Kang, who barely had enough time to raise his arms in defense. Mjolnir struck the weapon on Kang’s arm and shattered it, pieces of purple alien technology shooting around the room like pool balls. Kang flew backward, right into Carol’s arms. “Ms. Marvel!” he said.
“It’s Captain,” Peter said, stepping to her side. Carol smiled, batted her eyelashes and charged her fist with energy, then cracked Kang in the face. He fell limp in her arms, and she dropped him to the floor without a second thought.
She turned to Peter, who pulled off his mask and smiled at her. Kang groaned on the ground beneath her, and her heel absentmindedly stomped on the side of his head, just as Peter’s wrists seemed to unconsciously cover him in webbing. Carol took several steps forward, wrapping her arms around Peter. She buried her face in his shoulder, breathing him in, making sure it was real. “You’re awake,” she said. “You’re awake.”
“You called,” he said. There it was. She’d heard it, right there, in his voice, singing out like a tuning fork. Every ounce of meaning he could muster at that moment, standing bare-assed in a hospital gown next to a time travelling supervillain and the battered remnants of their team. She searched his face, looking for more, but his eyes were darting around the room, an animal on a highway. “Avengers Assemble, right? My quitting didn’t stick, did it?” he asked. He was gone again, scaled back over and behind his own walls of uncertainty.
Carol shook her head, both in answer to his question and in attempt to reconcile herself with his retreat. “No, no,” she said, “But how did this happen?”
Peter shrugged his shoulders and breathed a heavy sigh. “Well, when you’ve got a sixth sense that warns you of danger and a bad guy holds a knife to your throat, the alarm bells are kind of hard to ignore, coma or no coma.”
He stepped around her, and her fingers twitched to reach for him, but her arm didn’t move. He crossed the room to Steve, knelt down to check on his unconscious friend. Carol knew that she should be doing the same, going to get Jessica from outside, or make sure that Logan wasn’t dying without his healing factor, but she couldn’t stop watching him. It was almost a fear in her soul, that Peter’s recovery was some kind of miracle, that it would be robbed from him as quickly as it had been given. That he would be taken from her, she realized, just as he’d come back.
Peter lifted Steve off the ground and helped the old soldier stand. Steve hugged him, briefly, then pushed away, putting an arm over Peter’s shoulders. “I’m glad to see you up and about, son,” he said. “Are you alright?”
“Don’t worry about me, Cap,” Peter replied. He reached behind himself and took hold of the shield. “Here, this is yours.”
As it lifted away from him, Carol’s eyes welled up with tears. The opening in the back of his gown gave her only the smallest of windows, but the amount of stitching crisscrossing his back looked as though someone had drawn a roadmap on his skin. Several of the wounds were oozing; the stitches must have been stretched in his efforts to get out of his bed and join the fight. Finally, she turned away from him, going to find Jessica, to force herself to stop looking at a sight which tore at her heart.
XXXXXX
Doctor Strange and Hank McCoy were called in to help deal with the injuries from Kang’s attack, while Reed and Tony examined what was left of the weapon itself, hoping to reverse engineer it to restore those abilities it had taken away. Tony himself had nearly lost his life, barely managing to replace the damaged arc reactor in time.
They constructed a tank of enzymes that would mimic Logan’s mutation until they found a way to restore his healing factor, preventing the adamantium on his bones from killing him. Bruce had to be locked away in a cell, as his mind had not reverted like his body had. The Hulk raged against his confinement, his fury only growing with every ineffectual punch. Reed and Hank had some trouble with Danny, as the Tactigon had somehow blocked the neural pathways that allowed for muscle memory; essentially, Danny had forgotten all the training he’d received in the martial arts, including how to create the Iron Fist. Luke Cage had been somewhat fortunate: except for his powers being gone, Cage had suffered only a few cracked ribs.
Clint, Natasha and Jess had all been lucky enough to avoid being hit by Kang’s weapon, but they still had some cuts and bruises to deal with, and Strange had put them all on a day’s bed rest. Steve had earned a few more broken ribs from Kang’s assault, but everyone was thankful he hadn’t been hit by the Tactigon; no one wanted to imagine what might have happened to him if the serum and Vita Rays were stripped away.
The thought reminded Carol of why she was alive at all. She walked down the hall, still stepping over debris on the floor, and knocked on the door to the corner room. She was given permission to enter, and the hinges creaked as she stepped inside.
Compared to some of the others, Peter’s injuries now seemed minor. Hank and Strange had given him a thorough exam, and concluded that his brain’s brief period of oxygen deprivation had done no serious or permanent neurological damage; also, so long as the stitches held, his back would be healed in just a week. He was facing away from the door as Carol walked in, pulling a white t-shirt over his head. Strange had applied gauze pads over the stitches now, just to be safe, but Carol noted how so much more of his body was covered by the bandages than was not. “Hey,” she said.
Peter turned around, giving her the briefest glimpse of his torso before the shirt covered it. “Hey, Carol,” he said. He sat down on the edge of his bed, gesturing for her to take a seat on the small sofa, the same one she’d been sleeping on the night before. “What’s up?”
She raised her eyebrows, looking up at him through downturned eyes. “I haven’t really had a chance to say thank you,” she said. “For saving me, I mean.”
Peter smiled into his shoulder for a half-second, swallowed hard, and waved her off. “Well, if you hadn’t been in here when Kang showed up, I’d be a Spider-Husk,” he said. “Consider us even.”
Carol stood up, pacing on her side of the room. “We are not even,” she said, her hands resting on her hips as she walked. “You went through nine kinds of hell out there, with Doom and his vault and his stupid scavenged robots. I just happened to be in the right spot.”
“You really don’t have to thank me,” Peter said. “I was just doing what you asked.”
Carol rested her forehead in her palm. “Peter, I asked you to look into what was wrong with me, not fight Doctor Doom! Not take on a whole room full of Doombots, or a damn Ultron, or Thor! What were you thinking?”
Peter crossed the room and was in her face in a second. “What was I thinking? What about you? I could not have been clearer: stay in bed. Rest. And above all else, do not fly a damn plane halfway across the world and use your powers when your own body is killing you!”
She stared down the inch between them, her eyes narrowing at him. “I was not about to just sit in this building. And, if I recall, had I followed your advice, you and Steve would still be crawling your way across the Alps and I would be dead!”
“Yes, you would be dead,” he said. “Let’s talk some more about how eager you were to kill yourself early.”
Carol stepped closer, leaning down, her nose nearly pressing against his. “You wanna talk about trying to kill yourself early? Then let’s discuss all that stitching running up and down your back. Or maybe a stab wound through your left arm, or some collapsed lungs, or, oh, I dunno, a damn coma!”
Peter didn’t back away, but she could see in his eyes his rage was dissipating. “I was just trying to help you,” he said, his voice low, still seething.
“I’m just one person,” Carol said. “How many people do you save in a day? A week? Yes, I’m an Avenger too, and your friend, and you have no idea how grateful I am,” she said, pointing out the window, “But what makes me different from any of them?”
Peter turned in a circle, putting the smallest distance between them. His placed his hands on the back of his head, running his fingers through his hair. “You wanna know what makes you different?” he asked.
“Yes!”
Carol had just been trying to get him to open up, to do that which was so difficult for her, but her conversational skills existed in roughly two realms: biting sarcastic comedy, and verbal blunt force. She hadn’t been planning on an argument, but when Peter started throwing his walls up, the only option she saw was to bash them down.
She wanted to apologize about the fight, to say she was sorry.
But then she wasn’t.
He moved like a cat, lithe agility that was almost too much for her eyes, and her instinct took a step back for her. But his hands cupped the sides of her face, and she felt his fingertips on the back of her neck, the pads of his thumbs on her cheekbones; she wanted him to stick them there and never let go. He was pulling her in, and she wanted to fall, this woman who loved nothing more than taking to the skies and scoffing at gravity.
Heaven crashed against her, a frenzy, furious longing from a mind addled with frustration. His lips were striking, and she wanted to feel every inch of them, every line, every minute scar. She opened her mouth to let him in, but he pushed away, a terrible mixture of human desire and primal terror in his eyes.
Peter breathed in through his nose, heavy, swallowed once, and exhaled. He ran his fingers through his hair and down his face, then turned to the door before she could stop him. “God, Carol, I’m sorry,” he said, nearly ripping the door off its hinges before getting the handle unjammed. “I can’t… I’m sorry.”
And he was gone.