A Life in Marvel
Chapter 7 - Part 4
The final round was a pressure cooker, but a different kind. Without Peter on the buzzer, they had to rely on each other. Gwen and Morgan were still the engine room, but they weren't carrying the weight alone. Ned, no longer in Peter's shadow, confidently nailed a question on early computer hardware. MJ, with her usual detached air, calmly supplied a surprisingly detailed analysis of a Picasso painting that clinched the art category. They were matching their prep school rivals point for point. They were up against a prep school from California with a kid who seemed to have the entire periodic table memorized down to the isotopes.
Peter, who had slipped back in midway through, was a ghost at his seat, but a helpful one. He'd lean over to Ned, whisper a quick correction or point out a key detail that Ned would then relay to the team. He was a spotter, a safety net. The guilt was still there, but it was overshadowed by a quiet pride. They were doing it on their own.
The moderator, a stern woman with a sharp bob, cleared her throat. "For the final question in the Applied Sciences category…" She paused, looking down at her card. "Describe the process and potential applications of a Chitauri-derived matter-phase energy weapon."
A collective groan went through the audience. It was an impossibly niche question, something you'd only know if you had access to Level 5 S.H.I.E.L.D.—or Stark Industries—research.
The other team's buzzer rang instantly. "A Chitauri energy weapon utilizes a focused particle beam to destabilize atomic bonds, resulting in explosive disintegration of the target matter," a smug-looking boy said, reciting the answer like it was from a textbook. "Its primary application is as a battlefield-leveling anti-materiel device."
"Correct," the moderator said. "Midtown High, do you have a challenge or an extension?"
Morgan's hand was on the buzzer before she finished speaking. "The extension is in its unintended side effects," he said, his voice calm and even, carrying across the silent auditorium. "The weapon isn't just disintegrating matter; it's temporarily displacing it into a micro-dimension. The energy feedback loop required to maintain the displacement is wildly unstable. When the core overloads, it doesn't just shut down. It collapses, causing a catastrophic implosion that can create a miniature singularity. The real weapon isn't the beam; it's the gravitational collapse."
The room was dead silent. Even the moderator looked impressed. The other team just stared, their smugness evaporating.
"That is… an advanced and, according to our sources, correct extension," the moderator conceded, a rare smile touching her lips. "That's the point. Midtown High wins the National Championship."
A beat of stunned silence, and then the room erupted. Liz screamed, throwing her arms around Gwen. Ned was cheering so hard he fell off his chair. Flash sat with his jaw hanging open, utterly speechless. They had won. They had actually won.
In the middle of the chaos, Peter felt his phone buzz again. He didn't even have to look. He pulled it out, his heart sinking. It was an alert from his own suit's tracker, set to monitor for massive energy spikes. It was going off like a fire alarm. The location was terrifyingly close.
He looked up at his friends, their faces alight with joy and victory. Liz was looking at him, her eyes shining, expecting him to share in the celebration. He had to do something. He had to warn them.
"Guys!" he yelled over the noise. "We have to go! Now!"
"What? Peter, we just won!" Liz said, her joy turning to confusion.
"Something's wrong!" he insisted, his voice cracking with panic. "Trust me. We have to get out of the building."
His urgency was contagious. The smile faded from Liz's face, replaced by a flicker of fear. Gwen and Morgan exchanged a look, their playful postures instantly replaced by a sharp, alert readiness. They felt it too—the subtle shift in the air, the low, almost imperceptible hum that was growing steadily stronger.
Just then, a low, guttural roar echoed from outside, followed by the shriek of tearing metal. The ground shook. A window on the far side of the hall shattered, and a hulking figure crashed through. It was a monster made of scrap metal—a man in a crudely welded exosuit, with a massive vulture-like helmet and razor-sharp wings made of repurposed Chitauri metal. Adrian Toomes. The Vulture.
Panic erupted. People screamed and scrambled for the exits. The Vulture ignored them, his glowing red eyes scanning the room until they locked on Vultures' other man, Schultz, who was part of the event staff. He was holding a device—the matter-phase weapon.
"Took you long enough," Schultz grumbled, hefting the weapon.
"Shut up and get it ready!" The Vulture snarled.
Peter didn't hesitate. He bolted, not for the exit, but for a secluded corridor. "Get everyone out!" he yelled back at his team.
They were already moving. Morgan was shoving Liz and Ned toward a side exit, his face a mask of grim determination. "Go! Now!"
But Gwen wasn't leaving. She and Morgan exchanged a look—a silent, lightning-fast conversation that only they could understand. While Morgan herded the others to safety, Gwen turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, toward the chaos.
She found Peter halfway down a service corridor, frantically pulling his suit from his bag. "Gwen! What are you doing? Get out of here!"
"You're not doing this alone," she said, her voice firm.
"I have to! They have that weapon!"
"And I can help," she insisted. "I'm faster and stronger than you think. I can create a diversion."
Before he could argue, she was gone. She moved with a speed that defied belief, a blur of motion that would have shocked anyone who saw it. She ran back to the main hall, where Toomes was forcing Schultz to arm the weapon. The device began to hum, a terrifying, high-pitched whine that made the teeth ache.
Gwen didn't confront them head-on. She was smarter than that. She scaled a nearby support pillar, her fingers finding purchase on the smooth metal as if it were made of rock. She crawled along the ceiling, a silent, deadly spider, directly above them.
With a powerful kick, she dislodged a large, decorative lighting rig from its moorings. It crashed to the floor below, sending up a shower of sparks and drawing the attention of both Toomes and Schultz.
"What the hell?" the Vulture snarled, looking up.
It was the opening Peter needed. He burst from the corridor in full Spider-Man gear, webbing the weapon out of Schultz's hands. The device skittered across the floor, its hum dying as it was knocked offline.
"Get the door!" Vulture roared at Schultz, who scrambled for a control panel on the wall. Toomes turned his attention to Spider-Man, his metallic wings unfurling with a menacing shriek. "You're starting to annoy me, kid."
The fight was brutal and one-sided. The Vulture was bigger, stronger, and his suit was a walking arsenal. He swiped at Peter with a wing tipped with Chitauri blades, forcing him to backflip away. Peter fired web after web, but they just sizzled against the suit's armored plating.
Meanwhile, Gwen was moving. She dropped from the ceiling, landing silently behind Schultz just as he slammed his hand on the panel. A massive, reinforced security door began to slide down, cutting off the exit.
"Oh no, you don't," she muttered.
She moved with impossible speed, grabbing a heavy metal folding chair and swinging it with all her might. It connected with Schultz's head with a sickening *crack*, sending him crumpling to the floor. She slammed her hand on the 'open' button, and the door began to rumble back up.
"Gwen! Get out of here!" Peter yelled, ducking under another of Vultures' attacks.
"Not without you!" she yelled back.
The Vulture saw her, his glowing eyes narrowing. He changed targets, lunging toward her with terrifying speed. Peter acted on instinct, firing a web that snagged Vultures' leg and yanked him off balance. The Vulture stumbled, crashing into a row of empty chairs.
"Go!" Peter yelled, grabbing her arm. "The elevator! Now!"
They ran. Behind them, they could hear the Vulture roaring in fury, the sound of metal tearing as he righted himself. They burst into the elevator just as the doors were closing. Peter hit the button for the top floor.
"What's at the top?" Gwen asked, her breathing ragged.
"The monument," Peter said, his mind racing. "He won't expect us to go up."
The elevator shot upward. When the doors opened, they were met with the quiet, awe-inspiring interior of the Washington Monument. But their respite was short-lived. Toomes burst through the elevator doors a moment later, his suit battered but functional.
"Nowhere to run, kids," he snarled.
But Peter wasn't looking at the Vulture. He was looking at the ceiling, at the intricate scaffolding and the massive stone capstone at the very top. An idea, desperate and insane, began to form.
"Gwen," he said, his voice low and urgent. "I need you to trust me."
***
Morgan got the others to the street level, the sounds of chaos echoing from above. Liz was crying, Ned was pale, and Flash, for the first time, looked genuinely scared.
"We have to go back for them!" Liz sobbed.
"We can't," Morgan said, his voice like steel. He was scanning the chaos, his mind working, feeling the frantic energy of the fight above them through the building's very structure. He could feel Peter's desperation and Gwen's fierce, focused determination. He also felt the sickeningly familiar hum of the Chitauri weapon powering back up. "They're not just fighting. They're trying to contain something."
Just then, a sound from above made everyone look up. It wasn't an explosion. It was the groaning, shrieking protest of ancient stone under immense strain. High above them, near the apex of the monument, the structure was failing. Cracks spiderwebbed across the marble facade. A piece of stone the size of a car broke free and plummeted toward the ground.
People screamed, scattering in panic. Morgan didn't move. He just watched, his senses stretched to their limit, tracking the trajectories, feeling the vibrations through the soles of his shoes.
"Get back!" he yelled, pushing Liz and Ned behind a parked van.
The stone hit the ground with a bone-jarring crash, sending up a cloud of dust and debris. But that wasn't the worst of it. The elevator shaft, compromised by the fighting, had given way. The entire elevator car, with Toomes still inside, had been sent plummeting into the monument's foundations. The ensuing structural damage was catastrophic.
The top of the monument, where Peter and Gwen were, was now detached from its base, held only by a few remaining steel beams and hope. It was starting to tilt.
"Oh my god," Liz whispered, her face ashen. "They're trapped."
Morgan looked up, his jaw tight. He could feel them up there—Peter's frantic energy, Gwen's steady resolve. He could also feel the tremor of something else, a massive object falling inside the monument's hollow core. The Chitauri weapon. And it was active. The hum was getting louder, more violent.
He didn't have powers of flight or super strength. He couldn't punch through a wall or swing them to safety. But he had something else. He had a mind that saw patterns, that understood physics, that could calculate stress points and trajectories in his head. He closed his eyes, filtering out the panic, focusing on the feel of the building.
"It's not going to collapse," he said, his voice quiet but certain. "Not yet. The stress is on the northern support pillar. Peter's trying to web it, but it's not enough."
He opened his eyes and looked at Ned. "Your phone. I need the schematics for the monument's internal structure. Now."
Ned, snapped out of his stupor by Morgan's command, fumbled for his phone. "I… I can get them."
"Hurry," Morgan said, his gaze locked on the tilting spire high above. He was a general on a battlefield, his troops were trapped, and the clock was ticking.
Ned's fingers flew across the screen of his phone, his own terror momentarily eclipsed by the familiar comfort of rapid information retrieval. "Got it! I've got the engineering blueprints. Sending them to you now."
Morgan's phone buzzed. He didn't look at the screen; he just opened the file, his eyes scanning the complex web of lines and numbers with an impossible speed. His mind wasn't just reading the schematics; he was feeling them, cross-referencing the 2D drawing with the 3D model he was building in his head, a model infused with the real-time sensory data he was pulling from the monument itself.
"The core is a hollow, cast-iron shaft," Morgan said aloud, his voice a low, steady drone that cut through the panic of the crowd. "The elevator car's impact ruptured a primary stress conduit. That's what's causing the tilt. The weight of the capstone is now bearing down on the western keystone."
He pointed up, not at the precarious top, but at a point about two-thirds of the way up the structure. "The Chitauri weapon is falling. It's active. The energy discharge is resonating with the iron in the shaft, creating micro-fractures. It's like a tuning fork shaking the entire thing apart from the inside."
Liz stared at him, her face pale with terror and awe. "How… how can you possibly know that?"
"He just does," Gwen's voice cut in, startling them. She was standing right beside them, having slipped away from the main dispersing crowd. Her face was smudged with dust, but her eyes were clear and fierce. "Where's Peter?"
"He's up there," Morgan said, not taking his eyes off the monument. "He's trying to web the keystone, but the vibrations are too strong. The webs are snapping. He can't hold it."
A collective gasp went through the small group. On the ground, emergency services were finally arriving, their sirens a distant, wailing cry. Police were setting up a perimeter, shouting at people to get back. They were treating this like a building collapse. They were thinking about gravity and falling debris. They weren't thinking about a catastrophic explosion caused by alien technology.
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