mended 🕷️ peter parker [3]

18

Beck had set up a trap.

There was no Europol. The illusion had recreated the whole structure. As it disappeared, it was uncovered that they actually were in an unfinished building lot and Fury, Peter and Jessica were the only ones left standing in the room.

Suddenly, they heard a loud shooting noise and Peter pushed Jessica to the side. He had felt something coming at them in advance. Just an instant later, Fury was on the ground. He had been hit.

"Fury!" 

Behind them, a drone became visible while it hovered above their heights. That was what shot Fury down. And next it did the same to Peter.

"Peter!"

Peter fell down the edge of the room to a lower floor. Jessica decided to use her powers to destroy the drone but failed. She intended to manipulate the radiation around it to throw it against the ground, but when she tried to, it only stood still. The drone started shooting at her as well and made her step backward. Jessica was really grateful for the bulletproof vest that was part of her suit at that moment. The attack had been so unexpected that she didn't have time to create an energy field with her powers. She did not realize how close she was to the edge of the room until she felt her foot slip from the edge.

Like Spider-Man, she fell to the floor below. But when she looked around to locate him, he wasn't anywhere. Instead, she found herself surrounded by drones.

"I told you we would become close, Jessica." She heard Beck's voice, but the man was nowhere to be seen. "You and Fury always had to die, but not Peter." The drones moved forward and closer to her and when she looked down, her body was being pointed with green lasers, ready to be shot again.

"Don't you dare lay a finger on him!" She yelled out loud, still not knowing where he was. She was not afraid of him or his drones. If he wanted to shoot her, she'd protect herself with her abilities.

"It was as easy as letting him walk away," Beck kept talking. The drones in front of her disappeared, as they were also a part of the deception. "buy now you're making me do this."

The space surrounding her became pitch black and the only thing she could see was herself when she looked down. She witnessed how her stealth suit transformed into the dress she wore in the homecoming dance, six years ago. The dress was dirty and ripped at some places and she also wore the corset and the old gloves Tony gave her. Behind her, a hallway appeared and Mysterio stood at the end of it. 

She didn't wait for him to approach her, rather than that, she ran his way.

"You're just a kid." The villain said. Jessica threw her fist directly at his rounded helmet, but once more, it wasn't real. She really hurt herself when, instead of hitting his head, she hit a wall. "Ow, that wasn't nice. What would your little sister think about you?"

"Jess!"

As soon as she heard little Morgan call her name, she ran in her direction. After opening a door, she found herself in the top of the old Avengers tower, almost falling over the edge, into the streets of New York City. However, when Jessica looked down, there were no streets. Only a void.

"Morgan!" She saw her standing close to the edge. When she started running towards her, Mysterio appeared from a cloud of green smoke behind the five-year-old. "This isn't real." She told herself. "I know this isn't real."

"Do you?" Mysterio asked her as he picked up Morgan by her short arm, lifting her up a few inches above the ground. The toddler kicked the air as she tried to let go.

"Let her go!" Jessica yelled to the beguiler and he did let her go, but he threw her into the void. Jessica didn't hesitate to jump into the abyss, forgetting where she actually was. She felt her face hit a hard surface, even though it just looked black for her.

"I don't think you know what's real."

Jessica felt everything around her spinning and when it stopped she was standing in the street in front of her biological father's old lab in queens. All of a sudden, it exploded and the outburst pushed her back. She saw broken glass around her as she started to fall down again. She closed her eyes, waiting to hit the ground again.

But this time she didn't hit the ground. She collapsed on top of a car and when she opened her eyes again she was in the street. The actual street. She felt relieved the illusion was finally over. She got off the car, feeling a sharp pain on her back, and dusted off a few pieces of broken glass. She looked around her, having trouble to adapt to the sunlight, and found Peter laying on the ground, grunting as he slowly tried to get up.

She ran towards him but the second she moved, all around her went back to black. This illusion started with a lot of big glass pieces falling around her, trapping her. She realized they were mirrors, but only the one right in front of her showed a reflection.

"I mean, look at yourself. You're just a scared little girl." Beck spat again. "I worked for Stark for years. I invented his therapeutic experiment and he had the audacity to call it BARF." Jessica had no idea what he was talking about. "He was just a boozy man-child who wielded all this wealth and power that he didn't deserve. And when he died, he handed it all over to another child." He continued, every word he said made Jessica's blood boil. "I created Mysterio to give the world someone to believe in. They deserve the truth. Mysterio is the truth!"

A curtain of green smoke materialized before her and a moment after, Mysterio revealed himself. Not even a second passed before he attacked her, catching the girl off guard. She was pushed back, as the mirrors disappeared. She felt her back pain get even worse when she hit a hard and flat stone surface. 

She could barely see. Dust and smoke blurred her vision. She placed her hand on the hard stone she had been pushed against for support and her sight became clearer as the smoke dissolved. When she got up and stepped away from the stone, she could finally see that it was, in fact, a gravestone. 

She was petrified when she read the inscription.

"If you were good enough, maybe Tony would still be alive."

The only thing she could hear was her own heartbeat. She read the inscription over and over again. ANTHONY EDWARD STARK. 

His gravestone. She tried to tell herself it wasn't real, even if it felt like it. Nothing was real. Mysterio was getting into her head. He was messing with her. It was what he wanted. 

"Deep down, you know I'm right."

She turned around and Mysterio was there. Nothing else besides him. Just him and the darkness surrounding them. She wasn't looking straight at his face, but she felt how he stepped closer to her. Or at least an image of him. She thought this was only another illusion. The closer it got, the louder his words echoed in her head and the stronger her hate for him grew. She looked up to see herself reflected in his helmet. This was it. The drones were going to shoot her anytime soon.

But then it happened.

For a brief second, she didn't see her face reflected in his helmet. She saw Beck's big eyes looking straight into hers. It was him. He was there. His armor was an illusion, but he was actually standing in front of her. Of course, if he was going to end her, he needed to see it up close. He needed to do it himself. Jessica came back to her senses. She needed to think about her next move before he could finally kill her. And then, she went with the first thing that came to her mind, her visceral instinct.

She kicked him in the crotch.

Everything went back to normal. The illusion vanished and Jessica was back in the empty parking lot. She was surrounded by drones pointing directly at her, ready to attack her. But Beck had fallen to the ground, both of his hands covering his groin, and was struggling to give the order to the flying robots.

She seized the opportunity and took off, lifting from the ground and flying away as fast as her propellants let her. She wasn't going to stay there so he could trick her again. She didn't even look up as she rocketed across the sky, leaving the villain behind. But, consequently, also leaving Peter.