Chapter Text
The air in the Avenger compound smelled of ash and ozone.
Every surface was covered in dust and smoke, yet all eyes were on the man kneeling at the heart of it.
Hulk’s massive hand trembled as Tony placed the new gauntlet on it.
The stones pulsed in rhythm, six colors burning against his green skin, lighting the air like a storm barely held in check.
Maria Hill stood back near the shattered wall, her earpiece crackling with reports from every corner of what was left of the Avengers’ network.
She’d seen the impossible before, alien invasions, gods, Hydra. But this was different.
This was hope. And hope terrified her.
“Do it,” Bruce rasped, teeth gritted, the power already burning him from the inside.
Maria took a step forward, hands clenched.
Her mind wasn’t on the plan, the mission, or the strategy.
It was on a boy, the one Natasha had refused to stop worrying about even in her final days.
Peter Parker.
If this worked, maybe… just maybe, he’d be back.
And maybe, the universe would find a way to give back what it took from Natasha, too.
Bruce roared as he snapped his fingers.
The sound wasn’t a sound at all, more like the air itself cracking, the atoms remembering what they used to be.
A blinding wave of light rushed outward, washing through the ruins, then through the planet, then through the stars.
Maria shielded her face as the pulse hit.
Then silence.
The world held its breath.
One by one, her screens flickered back to life. Energy readings spiked. Communications lit up.
People were returning. Everywhere.
Her chest loosened, the first real breath she’d taken in five years.
“It worked…” she whispered. “It actually worked.”
A soft smile ghosted over her face.
“Welcome back, kid,” she murmured, as if he could hear her.
Cut to white.
A heartbeat in the void.
Then another.
At first, Peter thought he was dreaming.
The universe shimmered around him, endless, weightless, silent.
He could feel every atom of his body trying to remember where it belonged.
And then, it hit him.
The pain, the pull, the gravity.
He gasped, eyes snapping open, only to find there was nothing beneath him.
No ground. No sky he recognized.
Just air. Endless, cold air.
“Okay,” he managed between ragged breaths, wind roaring past his ears, “definitely not Queens.”
He looked down, a sprawling city of glass and sunlight.
He looked up, a streak of fire as he fell faster, faster.
“Oh, come on!” he yelled, reaching instinctively for his wrists.
Thwip!
A line of web shot out, catching on a distant antenna, for about half a second before the speed tore it free.
“Right. Air resistance. I love physics,” he muttered, voice climbing toward panic.
He fired again, this time crossing the webs, then again, weaving them fast, forming makeshift membranes between his arms and torso.
Thin, trembling sheets of webbing caught the air, fluttering like desperate wings.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even stable.
But it slowed him down, barely.
The city was rushing closer now, details sharpening: skyscrapers, glinting windows, streets lined with lights and colors he didn’t recognize.
Peter gritted his teeth, fighting the pull of gravity with everything he had.
“Okay. Okay. Don’t die again. That’d be… so embarrassing.”
He angled his arms, the web-wings catching a current. The wind screamed against his face, but his speed dropped enough for him to breathe.
Somewhere deep down, the spider part of him was thrilled, the scientist, too.
The human part was busy screaming.
The hum of computers filled the DEO command center, screens casting pale blue light across the room. Agents moved with practiced precision, their voices low, tense.
“Director Danvers,” one of the techs called out, “we’ve got something coming in fast over the bay. Speed’s irregular, it’s not a meteor.”
Alex Danvers looked up from her tablet, brow furrowing. “Not a meteor? Then what is it?”
The tech hesitated. “Not sure, ma’am. It’s slowing down. And… it’s changing direction.”
Alex crossed the floor in a few strides, leaning over the monitor. The blurry image on the screen showed something, no, someone, gliding, wobbling, fighting the air itself.
“Humanoid signature confirmed,” another agent said, his voice tight. “No visible propulsion system. Falling from stratospheric height.”
Alex’s jaw tightened. “Get me Kara.”
Within moments, a streak of red and blue tore through the sky above National City. Kara Danvers,Supergirl,cut through the clouds like a bullet of sunlight, her comm crackling with her sister’s voice.
“Got eyes on it yet?” Alex asked.
Kara squinted against the wind. “Yeah, I see it. It’s… not a ship. Looks like a person. Kind of flailing.”
“Be careful,” Alex warned. “We don’t know what it is. It could be dangerous.”
Kara rolled her eyes, even though no one could see it. “Everything’s dangerous until proven otherwise, sis.”
She dove lower. The figure came into view, a teenager, limbs splayed, strands of web fluttering like torn ribbons around him.
“What the hell…” Kara murmured.
Below her, Peter Parker was screaming into the wind, his makeshift wingsuit trembling. “Okay, okay, easy! Don’t freak out, you’ve done orbital re-entry before… oh wait, no you haven’t!”
Kara reached closer, ready to grab him, when a strand of web shot straight toward her face.
Her instincts kicked in. Eyes flashing red, she sliced through it midair with a quick burst of heat vision.
Peter blinked, shocked. “Carol?! What the hell was that for?!”
The wind roared around him, his words swallowed by the air, but panic was written clear across his face. He tried to shoot another web,nothing. His fluid cartridges were nearly dry.
“Okay, not Carol, definitely not Carol,” he muttered, flailing.
“Whoever you are, stop moving!” Kara called out, her voice echoing above the city.
“Yeah, sure, let me just,” he started, before gravity yanked him mid-sentence.
He fell like a stone.
Kara dove.
In a blur of motion, she caught him just before he hit the river, the impact splashing water up around them.
For a moment, Peter just clung to her suit, breathing hard, every muscle locked.
Then, because he was Peter Parker, he looked up at her face and whispered weakly,
“…so not Carol.”
Kara blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing. Just, uh, thanks for the save, not Carol.”
She stared at him, baffled. “You’re welcome… whoever you are.”
The DEO’s main hangar roared to life the second Kara landed, air vents hissing as containment fields powered up.
She dropped the boy to his feet, drenched, shaking, but already scanning the room like someone who’d been in worse places.
Alex Danvers was waiting, eyes sharp, sidearm holstered but close. “Report.”
Kara straightened. “Fell from orbit. Survived re-entry. No tech on him that I can identify.”
Peter coughed once, water dripping off his maskless face. “Yeah, sorry about that. Rough landing. Won’t happen again.”
Alex’s gaze flicked up and down, clinical. “Name.”
He hesitated. “Parker. Peter Parker.”
“Age?”
Peter didn’t blink while lying. “Eighteen.”
Kara frowned slightly. He didn’t look eighteen, not quite.
But his voice was steady enough to sell it.
Alex raised a brow. “And you expect me to believe you just fell out of the sky?”
Peter shrugged. “yeah well that would be the easiest thing but I wouldn’t believe it either.”
The tension between them thickened.
Every motion Peter made was small, measured, hands visible, breathing steady, but his eyes were moving, tracking guards, exits, cameras.
Kara noticed. “You’ve done this before,” she said softly.
He glanced at her. “What, the whole interrogation thing? Yeah, a few times. Never gets more fun.”
“You’re not from National City,” Alex said.
Peter’s smirk didn’t reach his eyes. “Good guess.”
“Then where?”
Silence.
He looked down at his wet sneakers, jaw tight. “Don’t know anymore.”
Kara tilted her head, voice gentler. “You don’t remember how you got here?”
“Not really,” he admitted. “One minute I was,” He stopped himself. The image of dust, a purple sky, and the sound of screams flashed behind his eyelids. He swallowed. “Then I wasn’t. Then… falling.”
Alex exchanged a look with Kara. “So you just appeared here. Out of nowhere.”
“Story of my life,” Peter muttered.
Alex crossed her arms. “You realize that it could sound like a threat.”
He finally looked her dead in the eyes. “If I wanted to be one, you’d know.”
That earned him a long pause, heavy enough to make even Kara tense.
Then, out of nowhere, a small smile ghosted across his face. “Look, I’m not here to cause trouble. I just need to figure out where here is. After that, I’ll be out of your hair.”
Alex’s tone stayed dry. “That’s not your call.”
Peter exhaled, eyes flicking once toward the ceiling vents. “Didn’t think so.”
He moved fast. Too fast. A flick of his wrist, a sharp thwip of web. Through the vent he went.
By the time Kara used her x-ray vision, he was gone.
Alex cursed under her breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Kara groaned, brushing soot from her cape. “He’s a teenager with superpowers. Of course he ran.”
Alex looked up at the blinking alarm lights. “We need to find him before someone else does.”