Who: Spider-Man and Captain America When: the night spidey bots get released Where: Old Navy yard What: fightin! Warning: violence, blood, some sads
The little metallic feet clinked on concrete and asphalt, like the sound of hail falling on a tin roof in an unstoppable wave, thundering, deafening, and all around. Steve hadn't been expecting so many of the little spiderbots, but Spider-Man, it seemed, had been offended by being ousted from the Avengers, and, well, avenged the only way he knew how: by releasing thousands upon thousands of robotic arachnids on the city of New York. They were meant to stop crime, or fight it, and they were certainly doing the job, but it was overkill. Steve had already had to save a carjacker near Stark Tower—the man had tried to kick away the little mechanical beasts as they swarmed him, which had only served to anger them further. By the time Steve was able to shove the man in the back of a police car, the carjacker's calves were torn open and bleeding, and even then, the spiderbots ran over the metal of the car, trying to get in.
It was mayhem. Subways were backed up in their tunnels like rats in flooded holes, as tiny metal bodies littered the tracks or the things crawled inside the cars and assaulted predators—it wouldn't have been bad, if there weren't so many of them, and if they weren't intent on injury.
It was especially bad because the people of the city had come to trust the spiderbots, to know them as crimestoppers and helpers. But their looks of relief as a store robbery was stopped soon turned into expressions of horror as they watched the robber nearly get disemboweled. Crime should be punished, of that there was no doubt, but there was a line, and in America, there was the law: innocent until proven guilty.
From uptown to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a ghost town of the days past Steve knew, Captain America went, shield banging down on robotic bodies, smashing out gears and minutiae without prejudice. He'd read what Ms. Stacy had written in the journals—that the little devils could still send data if they weren't entirely destroyed, so he'd brought water with him—a lot of it. He probably looked silly, a man in a spangled suit with a huge, hanging back of water bottles grabbed hastily from the nearest corner mart, but no one was laughing when he used it to fry the little suckers as best he could.
He'd run out about halfway through, so he just took to scooping the things up and tossing them in the pack, which he decided he'd later submerge. It was all he could do for now.
Down in the bowels of the navy yard, on Admiral's Row, among the burnt out skeletons of once-beautiful homes, Steve pried several of the critters off the arm and attached purse of a stupid, stunned thief. He held the boy to his chest and clenched super-strong fingers around metal abdomens and tore, with the clueless kid crying about how much it hurt and how he'd just wanted some money.
This was going too far.
Peter couldn’t stop most of the bugs that swarmed the city in clicking, mechanical waves. He had enough trouble stopping one to keep Ock from hurting MJ. It was wasted effort and after hearing Ock seethe about the Avengers he knew it was only a matter of time before one hunted down the other. So Peter, the real Peter, retreated far into the back of Ock’s mind and let him do what he thought was superior.
With Peter fading from the back of his mind, Ock pulled the Spider-Man mask over his face and climbed off into the night. The influx of bots were necessary to show Captain America that Spider-Man couldn’t be bullied and that New York belonged to the one Avenger that spent his time solving street level crime. Once they admitted they made a mistake, maybe he’d call back the ferocious little bugs. If he felt they were sorry enough.
Spider-Man had the option of ignoring reports from his bots that Captain America was out there destroying his toys. If he allowed the Avengers to think they had the upper hand while releasing more and more despite how many were broken, they’d eventually fold. But, Ock was looking for a fight. He was frustrated that no one respected Spider-Man like they did in his world and everyone was willing to take the side of some doe-eyed buffon of a girl who had stolen something very important and extremely dangerous. They were all fools, worse than the ones in his own world and the only way they’d learn was to beat some sense into them.
He landed on the side of one of the rotting memories of Captain America’s past and watched as the star-spangled baboon saved the life of a screaming purse thief. Well, wasn’t that a little counter productive? As the spider-bots were pried off and destroyed, suddenly the infestation seemed to still and retreat. Quiet fell suddenly and then a young, haughty voice called from the darkness.
“It doesn’t matter how many of them you destroy, Captain America.” He didn’t sound like anyone that would be considered a superhero. A strain in his voice that hit the same level of cuckoo for cocoa puffs that Loki’s did. “I will create more until the other Avengers become simply obsolete.”
Steve had just managed to free the would-be thief from the crawling, vicious creatures, when the voice from the shadows shot out on a web of noise, reverberating in the air, bouncing off of crumbling walls. The man turned instantaneously, reflexively, toward the source of the noise, releasing the thief, who used that moment to run away. The spiderbots had quieted, retreated in an eerie semblance of surrender—though Steve understood it to be the entering of the eye of the storm. He braced himself, physically, planting his feet firmer, and crushing the jittering, electric life out of the last bot in his hand.
He tossed its intricate remains on the ground between him and the wall Spider-Man perched on, a little bug huddled up in the darkness. Of course.
The voice itself was young and superior, a boy's, but no hero's. Steve squinted up, zeroing his sights in on the aberration in the shadows—the place where the black was a little more black, indicating a presence.
"You use these tinny contraptions to fight your battles, son?" He almost laughed, kicking a foot at the gutted shell of a bot. Captain America dropped his pack on the night-wet ground with a loud rattle and clank of metal and alloy, and he spread his hands out wide, palms up. He was derisive, with the purpose of goading the bug from his hiding place. "That's hardly heroic. I was right to kick you from the Avengers."
”DON’T CALL ME SON!” Spider-Man might have intended to sound fierce in that moment, frightening even, but the only thing that echoed was the shriek of a sad little man stuck in a nerdy kid’s body. “You don’t have the right to dictate what is and isn’t heroic. I am saving this city! I’m keeping crime down so low that no one even thinks about stealing a car. We’re in a new age of technology, Captain, and there’s no more room left for you!”
And, then Ock did something really stupid. His mechanical legs attached to his back opened up like fingers and pushed him off the decaying building. Spider-Man landed on his feet, took a running start towards Captain America and shot webbing directly for his eyes. “I’ll show you a hero! I’ll prove to this world that the only hero they need is the Superior Spider-Man!” And, boy wasn’t that getting weaker every time he said it? After the webbing went off, Spider-Man went for a swift kick to the Captain’s middle. All the hurt that usually came with getting kicked by Spider-Man was mysteriously reduced to something a little harder than a regular old ninja kick.
Because even though Peter was lost in Ock’s mind, he was not at all about taking a boot to one of his heroes.
He was saving the city. Metal clicked on brick as the boy descended. The shield came up in that moment in a spangled blur, all red, white, and blue patriotism honed into a reflective disc, stopping the web with a wall of vibranium. It tugged at the shield, trying to tear it from Steve's grasp, but he had the upper hand—he was stronger than the boy in the mask. He whipped the shield downward, yanking Spider-Man toward the pavement with one rough movement.
"Son—" Steve grunted. The kick hit him in the iron of his abdomen with all the force of a bunny rabbit coughing. He caught the retracting foot with his free hand, sole to palm, and twisted it clockwise, hard. The aim was to throw the kid to the ground. Steve looked down at Peter. He wasn't unkind when he spoke, just matter-of-fact. "You're no hero."
Spider-Man flew onto the ground like he had just be swatted with a giant newspaper and stumbled back to his feet. The metal legs were wide now, making him look like one of his own robot spider creations. He hunched forward before the legs click, click, clicked and walked across the ground for him towards the Captain. In an instant, he jumped up in the air, practically vanishing into the dark quiet of Admiral’s Row and then came crashing down on top of Captain America with all the force of a piano dropping from three stories up.
Webbing poured out of his wrists in an attempt to smother the Captain and keep him grounded. “What makes a hero to you? Honor? Valor? Why can’t it be efficiency? The world will never change with men like you at the helm!” Ock spat through his teeth and though the mask was secured over his face, it was clear that something was shaking him from the inside out. That part of him was trying so hard to stop.
The metal legs were ...something, definitely, uh, modern (and oddly HYDRA-reminiscent). Steve had only a moment to react to the sight of mechanical limbs, to try to understand the physiology there, as well as the significance of the name Spider-Man, when the bug buy launched into the air. Captain America quickly raised the shield a second time in preparation for some blow that never came, and just as he lowered the disc a smidge, the body of Spider-Man and his metal appendages slammed down onto Steve and his shield.
The thing helped protect him from the majority of the force of the blow, but the vibrations still rang out in the bones of his arm, and he went down from the impact. White, sticky web tied itself around him and Captain America gazed up and into the masked face of an angry, entitled boy playing at being superhero. A bully.
"The world might change with a boy like you spearheading, son, but it wouldn't be for the better." Steve stayed put, just for a moment, before slicing through the vinelike webs with the edge of his shield. He all but launched himself into the boy's midsection, headbutting him, before bringing one heavy knee up slam into his gut. He didn't want to hurt Peter, but he did want to stop him. He just needed to figure out what to do about those legs. "Who would look up to you?"
The question was sincere sounding, even if it was meant as a distraction.
Spider-Man cried in pain at the force of being smashed into by a super solider and then rolled across the dirty ground, struggling to get back to his feet as his mechanical legs twitched in the air. In the distance, the Captain could heard the sound of tiny chattering and swarming spider-bots. They hadn’t reached the battle yet, as if they were amassing first before sweeping in. Or maybe they were just watching? “People like me.” Spider-Man hissed as one metal leg stabbed into the ground and then another, slowly pulling his body up before he took a swipe at the Captain’s legs and then tried to pry the shield away with all of the legs grasping onto the edges.
“People who were outcasts their whole lives! People who value science and results over feelings and patriotism! Only fools look up to people like you, fools who don’t know what you actually are.” The arms dug in and then the swarm of spider-bots flooded over the both of them. Some trying to tear the Captain away from his shield, some trying to dismantle the spider. “What are you doing! You fool! You have no power over my creations!” Spider-Man yelled at no one and yanked harder on the shield as one of the spiders tore away his mask.
Clicking sounds were starting to fill in the dead air of the Navy Yard, sounds the place had heard, of a sort, a long time ago, sounds of work and progress, now reduced to decay. Steve couldn't see beyond the yellow halo of light that fell on the weeds and the boy who fell among them. He readied himself again, only watching as Spider-Man raised himself on those monstrous legs and retaliated.
The knife of the leg that came for him was deflected, barely, by the shield. But then Peter grabbed onto the think and tried to jerk it away, out of his grasp. Steve remained standing, his heels dug into the ground, but he was tore at by the sudden torrent of the horrible, clicking spiderbots. They crawled over both men indiscriminately, clicking and ticking and tiny motors humming. Steve grimaced.
"Yeah? And just what am I, Peter?" The man clenched his fist and ripped the shield backwards with all his might, wresting it back into his own control. The sound was terrible. But he figured out what to do about those legs, at least.
With a loud, metallic scccreeeeeecchh the legs were torn off Spider-Man’s back and tossed limply to the ground. The boy howled in pain and fell back into a sea of bots that scurried over him and attempted to keep his thrashing down. They bit, tore and clawed the young man until his mask was in tatters and his costume was sliced open with a thick, red line of blood. Soon, his body was swallowed up by the mechanical bugs before they slowly retreated to show the broken body of Spider-Man.
“You’re my hero.” Peter whispered as the remaining bots crawled off the Captain and Spider-Man raised his arms to try and get the Captain to look at him. What laid there wasn’t a psychotic killer masquerading as a hero, but a boy. A nerdy little boy that had eyes like any one of Captain America’s loyal comrades.
“You have to bring me in, Captain.” His voice cracked. “He can’t make any more spiders if you bring me in.” His arm flopped in the air and he wheezed in pain from the swarming bots as they slowly retreated away after Superior Spider-Man was no longer a threat. The pain was killing him and Ock’s madness was a circling black cloud in the back of his mind, waiting to gain control again so he could strike down each and every Avenger if that’s what it took.
Peter smiled and reached behind him into his spidey-backpack and pulled out the Avengers membership card. “I think you should hold onto my hall pass.”
Captain America saved thieves and carjackers and robbers from the pretend spiders, and he wanted to pull Peter up from their depths too. But there had come in too great a number, as if having been called there from all over the city, to witness the end or the beginning of the creator. Still, he tried. He dug through their bodies as best he could, pulling them off of each other—but he never got far before they poured back in, and by the time they retreated, they'd cut Spider-Man, they'd ripped his mask off.
There on the ground, amid the twisted remains of metal arms, was a kid. Just a kid. Captain America's heart nearly broke. He'd seen this before—on every battlefield, the bodies of boys, helmets still too big for their heads, and everything circled back to war.
Steve kneeled down by the boy. He tried to make sense of the changes, he tried to put together the pieces he had. This Peter was different. And he had huge, metal legs. He seemed more villain than hero, but he was an Avenger. 'He can't make any more spiders...'
Oh.
Oh, no.
"Peter?—" He looked at the card in the boy's hand, then back up at the boy himself. "No. You hold onto that."
His fist around Peter's, Steve made him keep hold of the card. He stood, stooped, enough to lift the kid from the ground—this kid who weighed nothing, but he did it gingerly, trying not to aggravate any wounds. He'd take him in, but the kid behind the mask—behind the real mask, that kid he needed to save.
The Captain issued his orders with softness. He had an arm under Peter's knees and another cradling his back. The bots could wait. Just for a bit.