Chapter Text
Everything about this was too slow for Nova’s taste. Spiderman’s communicator was scrambled, leaving ghost signals all over New York. The one location they knew that Doc Ock had been was underwater, not to mention exploded, so that was a bust. They’ve resorted to scouring the sewers, as that was the only other thing that the team could think of. That’s where they found the Octobot, as Spiderman had called them, slowly making its way… somewhere. At, like, the slowest speed possible. Seriously, this was stupid as hell, and they must look ridiculous, shuffling after this beefed-up hexbug.
By the time they get to the lab, it can’t have been more than two and a half hours, but it felt like an eternity. Regardless, it was too late. There was a small electrical fire in the corner, and no one to be found.
“Fan out and search the place.” Nova orders, firmly ignoring the pounding in his heart. The Octobot that they had been following walked up to a counter and then sparked, falling still. Nova’s not really a robot guy, but even he knows that that’s not good. He flies to the far wall, discovering that the source of the fire is a mechanical suit, leaking oil and a strange, dark red fluid.
Blood , Nova recognizes. That’s blood.
He turns around slowly, afraid of what he’s going to see.
There’s a body. Wearing a white shirt, green pants, pink button up.
Same outfit Peter was wearing today , a part of his mind whispers, but that can’t be right. That can't be right.
Nova takes off his helmet, hoping that the scene before him would change, but the gore remained and Peter’s dead body stays limp on the ground. Nova feels the bile rise in his throat, and he turns away, running face first into Power Man’s chest.
“Why’d you take your helmet off?” he asked, before glancing further into the corner. “Oh god. That’s not– is it?”
Nova dry heaved as an answer, pushing past Luke, away from the body. The room feels too small, the walls spin around him in a dizzying show of vertigo that leaves Nova to collapse on the ground, his eyes shut and hands clamped to his ears. There’s a ringing, somewhere, and Nova feels a hand on his back, feels someone hand him back his helmet and he slips it on gratefully, focusing on the cool metal on his face.
He coughs, standing back up on shaky legs. “We have to report this.”
Iron Fist rises from the ground as well. “I’ll call in. We should move.”
White Tiger ran over, stopping cold. “Shit. Who’s gonna tell Aunt May?”
Danny should feel sad.
Mostly, he just feels numb.
They have a ceremony, just the team. The official funeral, Peter Parker's funeral, will be tomorrow, but the four of them gather together around an old mask and the whole thing feels so stupid, and none of it feels remotley real. Danny's been to a few funerals since his stay at K’un-Lun. He's watched sorcerers he called his friends perish in battles, and he's gone to every ceremony. Danny's stuck going through the motions of grief, silently performing rites and building back up the hollow pieces of himself where Peter had once resided.
He knows the others expect him to say something profound, but for this, he has no words. All he has to say is stolen eulogies he had ripped off the internet. Danny feels bad about that for no more than two seconds, before he realizes that Peter probably would've loved it.
"There is no pain as great as the memory of joy in present grief." Danny says, and he can almost picture Peter's laughter. Peter always thought his advice was useless, anyways.
Sam stood up from the conference table, leaving the area to go sit in the corner up near the front. He grabs his helmet on the way, sliding it on to hide most of his face. "Fury called me in for a meeting, earlier." Sam spoke for the first time in the meeting. "He-- that asshole wants me to take Webhead's place. As if."
"As the leader?" Ava asked.
"Peter." Luke said sullenly. "His name was Peter . I'm not gonna deal with your rivalry anymore when he's not around to defend himself, buckethead ." Luke spat out the last word like it was an insult before turning heel and walking out of the room.
Ava turned towards Sam. "Did you accept?"
"Fuck no," Sam spat. "Threw it back in the old man's face." he's quiet for a second before he adds, "I don't think he's going to give me a choice."
Danny should probably give some advice, here. It's what most people know him for. Luke had called him surprisingly optimistic and Peter had called him a fortune cookie and everyone had been shocked to find out there's more to him, but Danny had just been trying to find his own place on the team, because Nova had the energy and Power Man had the strength and Spider Man had the quips and White Tiger had the skill and so really, what was he doing here?
I earned the Iron Fist , Danny had said to the dream version of Shou-Lao. The part of himself that had questioned the choice had been bested that day, but now it felt as though it grew stronger by the hour. Even with all of his training, Danny hadn't been enough to save Peter. None of it mattered, in the end. Nothing really felt like it mattered anymore.
Danny is so sick of losing people.
It's a closed casket funeral. Given the scene that the team had uncovered, that was understandable, but something about it made him pause. Most likely Fury's training (don't believe what you can't see with your own eyes, and all that) but it's frustrating to know that he won't be able to properly honor Peter's life in the ways he best knew how.
White sand in a small glass bottle. Smooth stones, shaped by the ocean into a perfect circle. Peter's birthstone, peridot, a substitute for the gem sewn into the robes of every sorcerer. Danny gathered everything on top of the grave, placing the gem in the middle. He added four stones, one in each cardinal direction, before eventually pouring the sand in a smooth, practiced circle around the five objects. A balanced harmony surrounding Peter's soul. It was all he had time for, so Danny left it at that, stepping away from the headstone as another teen walked closer. Danny vaguely remembered him as the boy that Peter would spend quite a lot of time with. Harry Osborn. Venom.
"You're Danny, right? I'm Harry. He-- He would mention you sometimes. Always had nice things to say." Harry told him.
"I've heard a lot about you as well." Danny responds, trying to be comforting, or something. Peter would know what to say, but now his absence feels like a vacuum, sucking all light and energy towards it, messing with Danny's internal alignments and leaving him to feel all sorts of awful ways.
"If you ever wanna hang out sometime…?" Harry offered.
Danny smiles, the expression feeling fake and hollow. "Thank you." he says, and he tries his best to mean it.
Nova had been the one to find the body, but Danny found the security footage. He got to watch in grainy detail as the bot lunged closer and closer to Peter, no suit or web shooters to defend himself. He watched as the bot launched one of its arms out at Peter, a blade attached to the end, and he didn't exactly miss the exact way and angle the blade pinned Peter up against the wall, chopping off the head with one quick swoop.
Iron Fist hadn't mentioned the video to the others, yet. There was no need to, really, because he had already delivered it to Shield and Nova was already so upset. Danny had been the one that Director Fury asked to relay the situation in the lab. Iron Fist was used to having to be the calm one in any scenario, but hey, maybe that was the thing he could be useful at.
White Tiger had the skill, Power Man the strength. Nova the energy.
Iron Fist, for the way he could calmly say, There's a lot of blood, sir. A body, most likely Spiderman, out of his suit and missing the head. Sending you a video now, sir.
The moment looped inside of his head, only calmed by the sounds of white sand pouring in smooth, practiced circles. After all, Danny had plenty of opportunities to perform that particular mourning ritual. Even the team tries to talk about it, Ava pulling him aside with a faux interested, "did you learn that from K’un-Lun?"
He had brushed her off, and she hadn't tried to ask again.
Danny had gathered the team, and they had left for the Sorcerer’s house, the miserable weather reflecting the mood of the group. Sam had tried to ask questions, but Danny’s expected cryptic words allowed him to fly under the radar and get them all entry to the house.
"Spiderman's dead?" Sorcerer Strange frowned. "That's a shame. He was a fine warrior. His alignment with the universe showed great promise.”
Danny bowed his head in agreement. “I was hoping to honor his life properly. I was not able to do so at the funeral.”
“Of course,” Sorcerer Strange agreed. “You may use anything you wish.”
With a flash, Danny finds himself and the others in a library of sorts, with everything he needs surrounding him. He hesitates for a moment before also grabbing a yellow rose, the petals of which were rich and full. No one else was fully versed in Sorcerer funeral rites, and so they didn’t need to know the meaning behind the gesture.
Under the team’s watchful eye, the ingredients were combined. Some were burned, some attached to ropes or sticks of wood instead. It keeps his hands busy as he thinks of the man lost, as he replays the scene over and over in his head of the different ways that the day could have gone. No one else says anything, feeling the sacred energy in the air as Danny works. Normally, only those trained as a sorcerer were allowed to see this ritual, but this was a special case.
“Life will live on,” Danny whispers, laying the wrapped stick in the flames. “For Peter.”
“For Peter,” Sam adds. Ava and Luke repeat the phrase.
Danny leans back from the fire, his knees groaning. “As long as the flames burn, we honor the life lost. Who wants to go first?”
“Do you guys remember when he lost Captain America’s shield?” Sam said, his voice soft. “He did the best when we were fighting him.”
“That day in the classroom, when he told us who Venom was.” Luke spoke up. “I don’t think he trusted us, then, but I’m pretty sure that it’s when he started to.”
Ava huffed. “I made a joke, once, while fighting. He paused to give me a thumbs up.”
The fire burned brighter, and the faintly sweet scent of flowers rose above the burning wood.
The first funeral of this kind that Danny attended was on his way to K’un-Lun. One of his guides was caught off guard by a wolf, and was far away enough from the camp that his cries for help went unheard. They had no ingredients for a funeral fire, and the ground was too hard to dig a grave. Danny was young, no more than fifteen, and all he could do was watch as the other guides lowered the body over the side of the mountain, as they scoured their food supplies and the brush around camp for substitutes. Any flame they managed to light was quickly snuffed out by the wind, and the items wouldn’t stay together. Danny had watched as the deceased’s brother tried, over and over, to pour out a smooth circle of white sand around a stone buried in the snow, only for it to get whipped away in the cold winter breeze.
He had promised himself, then, that he wouldn’t lose anyone else. Beating Shou-Lao hadn’t stopped the dangers, however, and against his best efforts, sorcerers around him continued to perish.
Seems that the loss has found him in this new position as well.
There’s something wrong with Sam.
Danny listens numbly as Ava explains her plan, and he speaks when they look at him, and he performs his part to perfection. He watches as Sam breaks down, finding the true sadness behind his anger, and it feels like he’s watching it from behind a television screen. He feels like he's still deep in meditation, despite being awake. It's a weird feeling, to watch time change from a molasses drip to that's much like a raindrop.
When everything felt too much, he would take his headphones, and listen to his playlist the whole way through. It's two and a half hours long, and so Danny spends his time in little chunks, dispersing sentences of the lessons he'd learned from K'un-Lun to his team, knowing that they're not listening but feeling apathetic all the same.
Danny has performed the funeral rites. He's mourned, done all the things required. The others are still dealing with it, but he's fine. Even if some days, his hands would not stop shaking, and his head would fill with buzzing static until he felt like he would burst. All he needed to do was realign his energy. Then, maybe, he would stop feeling as though he could shatter any second.