Chapter Text
Chapter 50
Ever since becoming part of the Parker family, not to mention discovering he was Magneto’s friggin’ grandkid, Tommy Shepherd has been finding himself in one crazy-ass situation after another. Okay, maybe the crazy-ass stuff started when he found out he was a mutant and accidentally blew up his school.
The good news is that he had nothing to do with today’s destruction of Midtown High.
The bad news? It had everything to do with Pete. Tommy is pretty sure that Peter Parker is the epicenter of everything weird and explosive in the universe. Even if Tommy hadn’t gotten a glimpse of the goblin guy that Pete once told him about, Tommy would have guessed that this was a Spider-thing.
After all, it wasn’t the first time Midtown High was attacked by one of Pete’s enemies and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Still, it’s the first time Tommy’s ever been in the school when that happened and in the fraction of a second it took for him to react, Pete was gone, Loki was gone and there were too many stunned kids and teachers getting in his way to do anything useful. All that’s left for Tommy to do is stick to the plan. Bucky has contingency plans for everything and this particular one is a Code Green, which requires Tommy to grab MJ and get her the hell out of there.
Just as Tommy finds MJ in the crowd, he hears laughter and turns to see that tool, Flash Thompson, frog-marching Ned out of Midtown High, holding up Ned’s clothes and making pig noises. Ned is a shade of red that shouldn’t occur in nature but there is pure murder in his eyes.
Go Ned, Tommy thinks. The thing is, Ned can’t do anything about Thompson, but Tommy can. He can give that jackass a Speed lesson in civility. He dodges the warning touch Mary Jane is about to give his arm and ignores her whispering, “Don’t.”
In fact, by the time MJ has finished saying the word, Flash is down to his boxer briefs and he’s got the word ‘loser’ written on his forehead in the lipstick that Tommy just swiped from MJ’s purse. Flash also has a clownish lipstick smile and a cartoon dick drawn on his chest.
Tommy’s coup de grace is wrapping Ned in Flash’s jacket and depositing him safely at MJ’s side.
“Sorry about your lipstick,” Tommy tells MJ. He turns to Ned. “Are you okay, Ned?”
Ned is scowling a very un-Ned-like scowl. “Ned has been taken by one of Peter’s enemies. I’m Loki. And Peter... Peter is me.”
Tommy almost asks how that’s possible but then his brain actually catches up with the answer. The Ol’ Parker Luck is the only thing that moves faster than he does. There isn’t much to say other than, “Hang on, you two.”
And before either of them can react, he’s at the Parker house, where Magneto is waiting at the front door, with a scowl that puts Loki-Ned’s to shame.
“You,” MJ gasps, looking more than a little green, “have got to stop doing that.”
Loki-Ned just pukes on the front steps.
“Hey, Gramps,” Tommy says to Magneto, “wanna hear how school was today?”
**************************
“Don’t shoot! It’s me! It’s Peter!”
Barnes blows out a weary sigh and lowers his gun. As if he didn’t have enough to deal with. And as if that could be anyone else other than Petey. Loki could never fake being that freaked out. “Loki picked a stupid time to do this prank again —“
“Y-you believe me?”
“At this point, Petey,” Barnes tells him, “there’s very little I’m not gonna believe.”
The body is Loki’s but there’s no doubt that the movements and speech patterns are Petey’s. Especially the stutter when Petey says, “A-aren’t you going to ask how this happened?”
“I know how it happened,” Barnes hisses through clenched teeth. “Magic. Loki using magic. I can deal with him later.”
“It wasn’t him!” Petey cuts him off, indignantly, as if the ‘why’ or ‘how’ even matters at this point. “I-it was another Asgardian. The Enchantress and —“
“Heimdall!” Barnes throws back his head and growls the name at Jones’ ceiling, ignoring the look that she throws his way. “You hear that? It’s an Asgardian problem. Tell Thor I said he needs to deal with it and get the kids back into their bodies! Now!”
“Congratulations, Petey,” Jones says dryly. “This was the thing that finally broke Barnes.”
Barnes flips her off, not that he expects it to have any effect. “Don’t you know who Heimdall is Jones?”
“I have spent my entire life trying to avoid situations where I’d find out who he is or who anyone else is that you costumed assholes know,” Jones shoots back. “Meanwhile, any time you’re involved —“
“Oh, for Chrissakes, Jones,” Barnes groans. “You wore a costume.”
“And yet I never ended up dealing with Asgardian bullshit until you came along.” She glares daggers at Barnes. “I know who Heimdall is. According to the myths, he’s all seeing or something.”
“Which means he knows about this body swap shit,” Barnes says, glaring up at the ceiling again. “And he’d better get on it already.” He cuts his eyes to Peter. “At least we’ve got one thing going for us. Osborn has Loki.”
“Uh, no,” Petey says quietly.
“No? Whaddaya mean no?” Because of course he’d never get that lucky.
“Osborne has Ned.”
“Who the hell is Ned?” Jones asks.
Barnes doesn’t have to be Professor X to tell that she’s kicking herself for asking already. For a moment, he considers telling her that Ned is another Spider-kid but considering they already have Miles to factor into whatever is escalating... He doesn’t want to find out how strong Jones is right now. “Petey’s friend from school. No powers.”
“Well, that’s good news. One new Spider-kid in the past day is enough.”
“Wait, what?” Petey’s mouth drops open in shock and if the circumstances were anything but dire, Barnes would have loved a picture. “What new Spider-kid? I mean, Deadpool said there was a spider —“
“And it bit a kid. His name is Miles. He’s Stark’s problem,” Barnes says in an attempt to shut down that particular Parker meltdown.
Jones smirks at him. “Do you want to yell it at my ceiling, Barnes? I mean, I do have JARVIS access on my computer so it’s probably the same thing as yelling it to Heimdall. Except for the fact I know JARVIS exists and Heimdall is a myth.”
“He’s not a myth —“
“You’re myth-taken,” Petey adds.
Barnes groans and smacks his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Petey! You really think this is the time to smart off?”
“One day, Barnes,” Jones says, “you’re going to slip and do that with your left hand.”
He already has and he’s never going to admit it to Jones. “I take it you found Osborn if you’ve got time to stand here and make stupid ableist jokes.”
“You’re spending way too much time with Matt,” Jones shoots back. “So far, all I have are holding companies and shell companies.” She glances at her laptop. “And an empty grave.”
Petey sucks in air. “No. Harry’s dead. I saw Norman k-kill —“
“The grave is empty,” Jones says, holding up her laptop to show them the satellite image. “JARVIS hacked a military satellite that can find underground bunkers so there’s no doubt that Osborn has his kid, dead or alive.”
“Gotta be alive,” Barnes reasons. “Otherwise, why go to the expense of developing another spider?” He glances over at Petey. “You were option two, kid. He knows he’s gonna have to go through me to get you.”
“Except he has me,” Petey reminds Barnes. “Or Ned. Or whatever.”
“And he knows you’re coming, Barnes,” Jones adds.
“He may think he knows but he’s not gonna expect us to just appear.” Barnes slants a look in Petey’s direction. “This time, the magic’s gonna be working in our favor.”
“So you’re just going to magic yourself wherever he is and beat the shit out of him?!” Jones asks, except she’s not really asking. Her tone and expression say everything her words don’t.
Barnes draws himself up. “I beat the shit out of him before.”
“Except now he’s prepared,” Jones shoots back. “The asshole is a mad scientist. He’s probably got some kind of tech that can disable your death arm, right Petey?”
“Uh, maybe?”
“So what —“
“So, if you’ve learned nothing else being Stevie’s sidekick all those years ago, it’s that you’re not the one with a plan, Barnes!”
“Um,” Petey says, raising his hand to get their attention.
Barnes knows that if Loki could see himself, he’d be cringing. Hell, Barnes is practically cringing. “What?”
“I don’t have a lot of magic left. Doctor Strange said I should conserve it.’
That. That is the icing on the shit cake that his day is turning into. “You saw Strange before you came here and he didn’t change you back?”
“He can’t,” Petey says, shrugging, like this conversation is in any way normal. “Or he didn’t have time or whatever. Anyway, he said that it wears off on its own. And yeah, I zapped myself over to the Sanctum Whatever-It-Is before Nick Fury could vaporize me.”
Barnes wants to lose it. He’s this close to losing it. No. He closes his eyes, takes a deep, cleansing breath and decides he can lose it over Nick Fury and Strange later. After he loses it on Heimdall and Thor. Cracking one eye open, he looks over at Jones. “Do not say a word, Jones.”
She flips him off.
Okay, that wasn’t exactly a word.
“Let’s come up with a plan that works, Barnes. Fast.”
“I have an idea,” Petey says.
What the hell, Barnes decides, the Ol’ Parker Luck is on a collision course with Osborn now. “Let’s hear it.”
00000000000000000000000000000
Ned isn’t sure when he passed out but he obviously did because he opens his eyes to find himself strapped to a gurney. There’s another gurney a few feet away and whoever else the monster guy kidnapped is hooked up to a bunch of machines and tubes.
“Aren’t you going to say hello to your best friend, Peter?”
The voice comes from somewhere over to his left, so Ned shifts around as best as he can until he can see the guy who’s talking to him. And then he wishes he didn’t.
It’s Norman Osborn — Ned recognizes him from all the news coverage — and he’s completely naked. That bothers Ned more than the fact that he’s been kidnapped by the Green Goblin, as the Daily Bugle called him. They also called him a maniac. Ned’s not going to think about that just now. “Uh, could you maybe put some pants on, dude?”
“Always with the smart remarks,” Osborn says and it appears that pants are not on his agenda. “Then again, you were always a very smart boy, weren’t you? Tell me, Peter, are you surprised to see that Harry is still alive?”
Ned is tempted to try to explain that he’s not Peter. Except he sort of is. And also, Ned’s pretty sure that if he weren’t Peter, Osborn would kill him without a second thought. He has no idea who Harry is. No idea what all of this drama is all about, other than that being Peter and Spidey is not as great an experience as he always thought. On the other hand, Peter is out there, somewhere, in Loki’s body, which means maybe a rescue is coming. So since Osborn is in a talkative mood, as well as a naked one, the best thing to do is keep the guy talking. “Uh, yeah. How come he’s still alive?”
Osborn launches into a monologue about his formula and how he’s a genius and blah blah blah.
Ned thinks maybe he should pay attention, at least a little, because Norman Osborn used to be a famous biochemist with a multi-million dollar company before he went completely nuts. But he is completely nuts and Ned just happens to be Spider-Man today. He’s pretty sure Peter would know how to get out of this. That he wouldn’t be waiting to be rescued.
“...the boy is with the Avengers,” Osborn finally wraps up. “And since I don’t have time to fight the Avengers to get a sample of the boy’s blood, you’ll have to do, Peter.”
“Wait, what?”
Osborn’s eyes narrow and Ned is instantly aware that he’s said exactly the wrong thing. “Were you not paying attention?”
“No!” Ned swallows and thinks fast. “I just can’t believe you made another spider.”
“Not just another spider, Peter, a better spider.” Osborn pinches the bridge of his nose. “All Markus had to do was one simple thing. Now some child has the powers my son was supposed to have, not that Harry would ever be capable of wielding such power without my firm hand guiding him, you understand.”
Ewww.
“What I do know, Peter, is that a transfusion from you will do for Harry what it did for the Stacy girl,” Osborn says. “And if not a direct transfusion due to blood type, we’ll use your plasma and hope it can at least stabilize Harry until I can isolate the formula from your blood. Thanks to Markus and his incompetence, I don’t have access to my improved formula nor the ability to test it.”
“You really think all of Peter’s friends are going to let you keep him here?”
“What?”
“I-I mean, do you really think you’re going to get away with this?” Ned quickly corrects himself. “I’m friends with all the Avengers and X-Men a-and even Luke Cage, dude. You’re gonna get crushed by them if I don’t crush you myself.”
Osborn emits a growl that makes all of Ned’s hair stand up and he’s not even a green winged goblin thing. “I’ll kill you before I let them take you and if you try to defy me, Peter, you’ll learn the hard way why that’s a very foolish idea.”
“Spoken by a guy who doesn’t own a pair of pants.” It pops out of his mouth before he can stop it. Peter would be proud. Will be proud.
There’s no way the Avengers, the X-Men, Luke Cage and those After School Avengers are not going to come to the rescue.
He hopes.