Crest of Responsibility

by SpaceQueenie

Summary:

At age ten, a monster fell out of Peter Parker's computer and became his best, first, and only, friend.

At age eleven, Peter Parker fell through a computer into a completely different world and decided to do his best to help save it.

At age twelve, Peter Parker missed the Chitauri Invasion of New York City because he was having lunch and deciphering an ancient prophecy with his friends in some old ruins in another dimension, or for him, a typically Tuesday afternoon.

And finally, at age fourteen, Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, roped into becoming a (Junior) Avenger, and kicked off an ancient prophecy that would affect the fate of both worlds.

Notes:

This story follows the MCU storyline, splitting off at roughly the end of Civil War, as well as the Digimon Adventure 01/02 storylines, where it splits roughly where Ken regains the Crest of Kindness.

The endnotes of each chapter will be a list of Digimon within the chapter and a brief description, a glossary of any new terms, and a solid invitation to talk about both the MCU (Minus Far From Home) and/or Digimon.

Chapter 1

         The Parker household held one computer, located in the middle of their small apartment’s living room. It was an out-of-date tower with a processing speed that made the bricks at school look like a supercomputer, a crack across the right corner of the monitor surrounded by dead pixels, and speakers that crackled, popped, or cut out, depending on the noise, but it was one of the only things Peter’s parents left behind, and so even if they could afford to get a new one, he didn’t think he’d want it.

         Every night, after dinner and any homework, if he had it, Peter was allowed to use the computer freely for two hours. The privilege was one he’d asked for, rather than one outright given, and once his Aunt and Uncle learned that he wasn’t doing anything other than playing the games he was shown by his teachers, re-watching videos of Iron-Man in action they’d seen him watch about a thousand times, or on occasion reading newly published science journals or checking out press releases from the most recent StarkExpo, they felt comfortable leaving him alone.

         That’s where Peter sat tonight. His Aunt and Uncle one door down, trusting Peter to get off well before his time was up. And, of course, Peter fully intended to shut everything down and go to sleep. At least, he did, before the computer broke.

         “What the…?” Peter muttered, leaning towards the screen with ever-widening eyes. The screen that just before held an article had flickered out and was replaced with lines of code he couldn’t recognize. Not that Peter had gotten into coding, it was somewhere on his list, but he was sure that mixing weird hieroglyphics in with different languages wasn’t exactly par for the course. Then, in the middle of the screen, something appeared. Oval, white, with a slight pattern to it.

         “An egg?” Peter grumbled, pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes. “Oh, great, some weird virus.” Just as Peter turned around in his chair to call for Uncle Ben, a light flashed from the screen and caused him to turn back around. To his surprise, the egg was no longer small and floating in the middle of the code, but it was forcing its way out of the computer screen like it was some special effect in a 3D movie. With a loud yelp and an awkward fall backward that tipped over his chair, Peter ended up with a bump on his head and a weight on his chest that he was sure he didn’t want to look at.

         “Peter? You okay?” Aunt May called from the other room.

         “Y-yeah,” Peter called back, trying not to let his nervousness seep into his voice.

“I’m not hurt. Just tripped on my shoes and knocked over a chair.”

         He could hear her eyes roll. “That’s why I tell you to put them up!”

         Whatever she said next was lost on him as his eyes caught what was making the weight on his chest. It was the egg. The egg that was supposed to be some weird computer virus that shut down his computer, that would possibly make his Aunt and Uncle take away his computer time. The same one that made his computer go completely nuts. It was nowhere, in front of him, sitting on him. He looked up at the computer for confirmation and only saw the code fade into nothing as the computer shut itself off.

         Slowly, Peter sat up, careful to maneuver the egg onto his lap. As he did so, something else fell off of his chest and onto the floor. He looked at it and picked it up. It was a small device, rounded off at the corners, but not quite circular, and blue. It had two buttons on one side, one on the other, an antenna sticking out of the top, and a blank screen in the middle. It reminded him a little of what doctors use instead of a cellphone. What was it called? A pager?

         No time for that. Giant, mystical looking egg to deal with. Peter put the chair in its rightful place, did one last google search, nabbed all of the items from tonight’s ordeal, and then made his way to his room for the night.

         Once there, he cleaned out a small space in the back of his closet, took down a shoebox off the top shelf that was filled with broken toys he’d promised himself he’d one day fix and dumped it, then re-filled it with the smallest blanket he had before placing the egg in. For once thankful that he got roped into watching the class’ pet lizard over the weekend enough that he had his own supplies, he pulled the heat-lamp into the closet, turned it onto a lower setting. For once, he went to sleep with the closet door cracked open, determined that if any monster was in there, he’d fight it off to save the defenseless egg.

        

         Morning came too quickly for Peter’s liking, but that was mostly because he didn’t sleep at all during the night. Was the egg too cold? Did it even need heat? What if it needed to be in the water or something? He had no idea what to do, and it was bothering him. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, he should tell his Aunt and Uncle. But then some voice would yell, No! They can’t know! Not yet!, and he’d be right back to worrying all alone.

         This particular morning was a Saturday, and so his Aunt and Uncle were surprised to see Peter up so early. They were even more surprised when he asked to eat his breakfast in his room.

         “If you promise not to make a mess,” Aunt May said, confusion evident in her voice. As soon as he ran off, plate of pancakes in his hand, she turned to Ben.

         “He probably has a stack of library books he wants to finish. You know him,” Ben said with a smile.

         While Peter did read in his room, it was not alone. Half-finished breakfast sitting next to him, Peter read aloud to the egg that now sat between his legs, comfortably wrapped in a blanket, and when his tired eyes slipped shut, he never noticed the cracks forming on its shell.

 

         It was a few hours before he woke up, and by then the blanket had moved several feet, his breakfast was completely gone, and his pile of books had gone from a neat ‘Already Read’ and ‘To Be Read’ pile to a catastrophic mess all over his room. Briefly, he wished that none of them were ripped and that his Aunt had no need to enter the room before he could clean it up.

         Only briefly, because at that moment he noticed the egg was missing.

         It took about a minute of frantic searching before Peter saw no trace of the shell. So, it was still intact, right? At least, it was still intact when it left here and went wherever it went. That was one good thing.

         In the midst of Peter’s attempts to stem his panic, a small, angry squeak came from somewhere near his bed. Whipping his head around fast enough to give him whiplash, Peter saw a very small, very purple puffball with large, pointed ears staring, no, glaring, at him with nearly entirely black eyes from a cocoon of blankets that was once his well-made bed. Peter blinked once, then rubbed his eyes to try and get rid of the hallucination in front of him caused by sleep deprivation, before the puffball squeaked its angry squeak once more, demanding his full attention.

         After removing his hands from his face, Peter slowly made his way over to his bed, careful to avoid the books on the floor for fear of causing further damage. This close, he was able to see that the creature’s eyes weren’t actually black, but a darker shade of purple, which was a little less unsettling. “Did this thing… come from the egg?” He said, mostly to himself.

         The question, however, garnered what could almost be considered an eye-roll from the puffball, followed by a headbutt, which wasn’t soft in the slightest despite appearances.

         “Ow.” Peter hissed, almost lamely, rubbing the spot his forehead where the puffball connected. The puffball glared pointedly at him. “Got it, dumb question.” It continued to glare. “Why did you hit me?”

         The puffball made a series of different noises, each one making it sound more and more like a dog’s chew toy.

         “I really can’t understand you, sorry.” It glared at him once more, but with its small size and fluffy stature, all it succeeded in was looking cute. Peter let out a small laugh. “You’re not really scary like that, you know? But you do pack a mean punch.” The puffball deflated slightly, then seemed to mumble something. Peter, finally understanding, pat its head and smiled. “Don’t worry, I forgive you.”

         It took him a couple of hours to put his room back in working order, but he refused to touch the bed where his new companion sat. The creature, whatever it was, just looked too comfortable wrapped up among the comforter and quilts that he couldn’t even think about moving it. By the time he was finished, Peter looked over to see the purple eyes closed in sleep. Now that he had the opportunity, he made his way to the kitchen to make himself a late lunch. At the pantry, he paused, thinking of the puffball sleeping on his bed. What would he feed him? Regular old people food? Did he need a special diet? Was he allergic to chocolate?

         For now, Peter settled on making an extra PB&J sandwich for the little guy, and threw some extra chips in too, before heading back into his room with the excuse that he had to finish the library books before the deadline on Monday (which wasn’t exactly a lie).

         At the smell of food, the puffball shot out of his sleep. The sight made Peter snort, which only served to strengthen the glare on said puffball, but it wasn’t any sort of serious, angry glare. More of an ‘I can’t believe I let you see that and this is the only thing I can do about it’ sort of glare. Peter could relate.

         Once he set the plate down and picked up the sandwich he meant for the little guy, however, things went downhill. Instead of him eating the balanced meal that he’d intended to after skipping out on half of breakfast, which consisted of two PB&Js and a few baby carrots, he was left with half of a PB&J, the half that he’d intended to test feed to the puffball in order to see if he could even eat people food with.

         Conclusion, yes, he could eat people food. He just ate all of Peter’s lunch. Dejectedly, because there’s nothing aside from trying to sneak around Aunt May for more food before dinner, and she would hate if he ‘ruined’ his dinner, Peter simply sat and ate his half a sandwich in peace as he watched the puffball vacuum up the remaining bits of food. At least it had the decency not to leave any crumbs.

         “You know that was supposed to be my lunch too, right?” Peter asked when it was finally done. At least it also had the decency to look a little put out at that, with its tall, pointed ears lowered to the back of its… head? Body? Both.

         Peter sighed. He never liked confrontation. He liked hurting people’s feelings even worse. “It’s okay,” He assured the puffball, smiling. “You must’ve been really hungry, right? I mean, you just hatched or whatever. And, I don’t even know what you are, but you guys probably have to eat a lot of food, considering the size of that egg.”

         For the first time, when the creature looked at Peter, its eyes were entirely soft. It hopped away from the plate of food and over towards a pile of books, and before Peter could get out the words, “Be careful, please!”, the little guy headbutted the pile softly, only shaking it slightly, and then looked expectantly at Peter. When he didn’t move, the creature did it once more, this time a little more forcefully.

         “Do you want me to… read to you?” Peter asked. The puffball squeaked once. “What kind of story do you want to hear? An adventure story? Or maybe a fairy tale? I think I’ve got some non-fiction in here too, but that might be a little boring…”

         That was how Peter spent the next few days, locked in his room with the little unidentifiable creature, sneaking in extra meals and reading his new friend to sleep. When Aunt May or Uncle Ben came to check up on him before bed, the purple puffball stiffened up, and he was able to pass him off as a stuffed animal one of his classmates had given to him as a gift for helping them out with schoolwork. When Monday came around and he absolutely had to leave in order to go to school, Peter made sure to hide snacks in his closet and to leave some of his old toys out. He also left his friend explicit instructions not to come out of his room when he wasn’t there, despite the fact that no one was in the home. There was no telling when his Aunt might come back, seeing as her schedule was much more malleable than his Uncle’s. When school let out, he ran as fast as he could to the library, dropped off his books, picked up those on his pre-determined list, and ran back home.

         “I’m home!” Peter called, just in case. When there was no answer, he ran to his room and threw open the door, stifling a laugh when his friend automatically stiffened up. “Relax, it’s just me,” He said as he walked inside and picked him up. “Nobody else is home, so I was thinking you can come and explore the apartment.”

         Taking the excited squeak as a yes, Peter cradled the puffball in his arms and acted as a tour guide in his own home, lingering in the kitchen to make some food and finally in the living room to relax with his friend. As always, his appetite knew no bounds, and Peter drew the short end of the stick when it came to their shared plate, ending up with only a handful of chips and a celery stick when it finally came down to it.

         “You didn’t even bother to let me dip them in the peanut butter first,” Peter said, trying not to laugh at the smears of food still stuck in his friend’s fur that made its confused face all the more entertaining. “Here, I’ll let you have a bit of this one so you can try it.”

         He dipped his celery in the peanut butter he’d scooped onto the end of the plate, then broke it off of the whole piece just so he’d still be able to have some. Finally, he offered it out to the puffball in the way that was now so familiar it felt like he’d been doing it his whole life. Snatching the bit of celery from his hand, the frown that was almost always on its face turned to a more neutral expression, which Peter knew to be as close to a really, really, big smile as possible for it.

         “Glad you like it,” Peter said as his companion practically begged for more with just a look. “But you ate all the celery, so we’ll have to wait until Aunt May goes shopping again.”

         And so Peter’s life went, with his not-so-parents of an Aunt and Uncle who were alright with Peter acting his age for once, with stuffed animals and imaginary friends, and his kind-of-monster of a friend, who fell from the computer with the device he threw in his bedside table and forgot about.

 

         One night, not even a week after the creature who Peter still hadn’t taken the time to name had eaten all of the celery in the fridge, a shuffling noise woke Peter. His eyes met a clock rather than a furry mass, and he was able to see that it was very late, or very early, depending on your view of the world and time. Immediately his hand moved around his bed for the puffball, who had taken to sleeping on the pillow next to him and found nothing. He sat up slowly, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and heard the shuffling noise again, followed by a slow, soft, high-pitched whimper. Although it wasn’t a sound he’d heard before, but he knew who it came from.

         Hiding deep in his closet, shivering underneath a stolen quilt, sat the puffball. Its eyes were screwed tightly shut, its ears were nearly flat.

         Peter was over by its side in seconds, wrapping himself in the quilt and pulling his friend into his lap. He ran the day through his head, trying to figure out what was different. Did something he fed the creature make it sick? Another whimper focused him on the here and now, and he stroked its head soothingly.

         “Hey, hey,” Peter murmured. “You’re okay.” One eye opened slightly and Peter received the weakest headbutt the creature could give. He laughed softly at the display. “See? Nothing can bring you down.” Just as Peter moved his hand to continue petting the creature, hoping to help get it through whatever this was, his friend did something entirely unexpected.

         His friend began to glow.

         Not a soft, bioluminescent glow, like that of some algae or jellyfish, or even of some other kind of animals in defense mechanisms. It wasn’t in patterns, there was no hint of translucence, and of course, his friend had fur. Peter could have believed this was a natural sort of thing if it had been that kind of glow. This glow was that of just light, bright and white and pure, emanating from everywhere and nowhere at once, encompassing his friend before Peter had any say in anything at all. Peter, blinded by the light, was forced to turn away, and only barely noticed that some of it seemed to come from his drawer as well.

         When it finally went away and he could check on what exactly happened to the little puffball, the little puffball wasn’t there anymore. It was a similar situation with the egg, in fact. There was no evidence that he was ever there, no traces of his purple fur on Peter’s clothing or the quilt, only the mess left behind.

          In his place sat a slightly bigger puffball, with purple fur on most of his body. His eyes, rather than the dark purple Peter had grown used to, were now a light green, and the ears were longer, and drooped at the end, in a similar way to witch’s hats. His face, rather than being covered in fur, was covered in shorter, brown fuzz. Despite the new look, the scowling, angry-not-angry eyes and the frown on its face remained the same.

         “Puffball…?” Peter asked tentatively, not sure if he was allowed to touch just yet.

         “Do I havta headbutt you again?” The creature asked, rolling its eyes. “O’ course it’s me! And my name’s Yaamon now.”

         Peter stared at his friend slack-jawed. Then, his filter shattered, questions poured out. “Y-you can talk? How can you talk? Why did you look like this? What was that light? Are you okay? You looked hurt earlier. How can you talk?!”

         “I can talk because I’m Yaamon now!” Yaamon jumped up and down in Peter’s lap, clearly now over whatever was bothering him earlier. “You helped me ta digivolve, because you’re my partner.”

         “D-digivolve…?”

         Yaamon jumped off of Peter’s lap and hopped over to his bedside table, where the secondary glow had come from. Peter followed him and opened up the drawer. He picked up the small blue device, saw the screen flash ‘DIGIVOLUTION COMPLETE’ once, and then go back to its blank state.

         “You got a Digivice, so that makes you my partner.”

         “So this thing made you change?” Peter said, thinking about how hurt his friend looked only moments ago.

         Yaamon shook his head. “All Digimon can digivolve. With all the food I ate, I was starting to digivolve, but you made it easy for me.” Suddenly, Yaamon was in his arms, letting out a small yawn. “Thanks, Petey.”

         “Y-you’re welcome…?” Peter looked back at the time. He decided to handle all of… Whatever this was in the morning when he had at least double the brain capacity. “We should go back to sleep.”

         No answer came, and Peter looked down to see Yaamon sleeping in his arms. He rolled his eyes but was silently thankful that this bigger version of his friend didn’t snore.

Notes:

Featured Digimon:
Kiimon -
A Fresh level Digimon, and the Digimon that originally hatches from the egg. As a Fresh level, Kiimon can't attack, and isn't generally good for much other than eating until he evolves into the next level.
Yaamon -
Yaamon is an in-training Digimon. Yaamon has one attack, called 'Rolling Black', where it shoots a ball of darkness at its opponent. However strong this may seem against humans, this is weak against other Digimon, considering its level.

 

The Digivice -
The small blue device that arrives with Kiimon allows the user to transfer their energy to their Digital Partner in order to allow easy and non-permanent digivolution. This energy is usually positive, emotional energy.

Chapter 2

Notes:

I honestly thought this would be too niche of a crossover for anyone at all to read, but I am happily surprised! There's gonna be a few more chapters before the real plot begins, so I'll be posting those quicker than I usually would.

         It was at age ten, a few months shy of eleven, that Peter met Yaamon and joined the ranks of the Digidestined, children with Digimon partners who were meant to protect the Digital World, and in turn, the real world. However, since Yaamon was only an egg when he came to Peter and thus didn’t know anything about that part, neither did Peter.

         The explanation that Yaamon had given Peter was pretty simple, and not much further than what he’d said last night, or what Peter could guess himself. Yaamon was a Digimon, short for Digital Monster. Peter could’ve guessed that, considering his egg had come from the computer, but he didn’t interrupt the little guy. Digimon come from someplace called the Digital World. Peter really wanted to know if there was a way to get there but considering Yaamon was less than a baby when he came here, he probably wouldn’t know. Since Yaamon came to him, and Peter got that blue thing, which he now knew was called a Digivice, then that makes them partners, and it allows Peter to help Yaamon digivolve in order to fight.

         Several questions arose more questions arose. What kind of partners? Why would they be made partners? Who would Yaamon need to fight, exactly?

         Yaamon didn’t know the answers to those questions, but the information he did know seemed to be strangely instinctual, and Peter felt it to be weirdly trustworthy. Despite that, he needed an outside opinion. Then came a new, even stranger problem. Whenever he thought of telling his Aunt or Uncle something in the back of his head that he felt a desperate need to listen to screamed at him not to, and he decided to listen to it. In fact, it happened when he thought of talking to any adult, and it wasn’t like he had that many friends around his age.

         Then one person came to mind, someone who would listen to anyone, without question, someone who loved to help. Peter practically sprinted around the house to get things ready, nearly squishing all of his things in the process of trying to get a large enough space to fit Yaamon in his bag, and was almost out the door before his Aunt asked, “Where do you think you’re going?”

         Peter shuffled his feet. “I just wanted to go and see if I could help Mimi. She’s s’posed to be at the greenhouse today.”

         His Aunt looked from him to his backpack, probably trying to judge whether or not Peter had brought his homework along to finish (he didn’t). “I want you back before five, and don’t-”

         “Thank you I love you bye-bye!” Peter called as he slammed the door, cutting her off.

         “Slam the door on your way out.” His Aunt finished, throwing her eyes upwards.

        

         Mimi didn’t live in Queens. Mimi lived in a high-end apartment in Brooklyn, went shopping every other weekend with friends, and had a different outfit on every time Peter saw her, save for her signature pink cowboy hat that seemed to tie each one together. Mimi also donated all of the clothes she knew she wouldn’t wear again after each shopping trip, made sure her parents donated to multiple charities using the same puppy dog eyes that could get her a pony at the snap of her fingers, and, in her free time, worked around the city at several public gardens where people could plant fresh vegetables to use at home.

         Before she started, the one in Peter’s neighborhood could barely be called a garden. It was a single, sad tomato plant that was watered by hand twice a month and got the rest of its water from roof runoff through a hole in the greenhouse roof. The greenhouse itself had cracks and holes throughout the building, to the point where she’d had to get it repaired by professionals before even planting anything.

         Once, Mr. Delmar asked her why she was putting so much trouble into the old thing at all. There were much easier gardens around the city to start up.

         Mimi didn’t even look away from the small saplings she’d been repotting before saying, “A long time ago, I learned that once you promise to do something, you need to get it done, no matter how easy or hard it might seem. Just promising to do it isn’t enough, and it doesn’t do anything but hurt anyone in the end.”

         After that, no one questioned the greenhouse project.

         They did, however, use the greenhouse. When the first plants bore fruit, strawberries, then everyone in the neighborhood came by and congratulated Mimi on a job well done, gave her first pick, and nearly kept her well into the night, asking her about her life. Everyone in the neighborhood learned that while Mimi could listen well, she could also talk an ear off. In such a close-knit area, an outsider became like one of the family in a few months.  

         “Mimi!” Peter called as soon as he saw the tell-tale hat peeking through the rows of plants.

         “Oh, hey Petey-Pie!” Mimi ruffled his already messy hair. As always, the older girl wore what she thought of as working clothes, a blouse and shorts, as well as an apron to try and keep most of the dirt off of her clothes. “You here to pick something? If you come back in a few days, the zucchini should be done. Tastes great in a salad.”

         Peter bit the bottom of his lip. “I wanted to ask you something, actually. Have you ever heard of anything called Digimon?”

         The change was subtle but instantaneous. Mimi’s relaxed, airy attitude switched to one that was, albeit only slightly, more serious. The only noticeable difference was the look in her eyes, searching for something on Peter’s person.

         “My friends and I played it when we were kids. It was some game that never really took off.” Her smile widened a fraction as if she was sharing some inside joke that he wasn’t picking up on just yet, and Peter could pick up the mischievous glint in her eye. “Did you read about it somewhere?”

         Yaamon took this moment to pop slightly out of Peter’s bag, eyes fully glaring-but-not at this new person he’d yet to be introduced to. “He’s asking ‘cause of me.”

         “Yaamon!” Peter half-whispered, half-screamed. “We agreed you would stay in the bag!”

         Yaamon momentarily redirected his gaze at Peter. “That’s so people won’t find out about me. If she already knows, then why do I need to?”

          “Yaamon? Would you like to come out of the bag?” Mimi asked the Digimon. He nodded, which looked rather comical when it was his whole body doing so. “Then it's simple. When out in public with Peter, you need to pretend to be his stuffed toy. Including here, since anyone can walk in. Think you can do that?” Yaamon once again nodded, then hopped into Peter’s arms. The boy barely caught him but adjusted his grip enough to be comfortable. Then, to Peter, she said, “You should tell people what I just told you. Digimon is an obscure game. The Digivices are the only real copies, and only a few people have them because it was never really popular.”

          Peter nodded. “We’ve been pretending at home for the past week or so, but I don’t know how to explain how he changed…”

         “Did Yaamon digivolve?”

         Peter, thankful to finally have someone who knew what was going on, told Mimi exactly what happened. About the egg and the blue device coming from the computer, about the purple puffball who destroyed his room, and the near week they’ve spent together, and finally about the nagging feeling he gets whenever he thinks about telling someone.

         Mimi was silent for a moment, before finally saying something rather unexpected. “Do you have your Digivice with you?”

         “Uh, yeah,” Peter said, digging around in his bag to get it. He noticed that at the same time, Mimi was unclipping something from her belt. It looked like his, except... “Yours is green!”

         Mimi covered her mouth to hide a giggle. “I’ll tell you why a little later. I think you’re already on overload. There’s also more than the two of us with these things and partner Digimon.” Taking the device out of his hand, she fiddled with it for a moment before an actual screen popped up, displaying two arrows right next to each other. “This is a tracker. Anyone who has a Digivice will display as a red arrow. We’re the only two in the city right now, and I always have mine on me, in case you two get in trouble. But, when you feel like you're ready to talk...” She pulled a notepad and a pen out of one of her apron pockets, and began to write. It took until she’d folded it in half and placed it in his hand to realize it was her contact information.

         “That has my email, my phone number, some social media, but I doubt your Aunt and Uncle let you use those yet, and my address. I’ll tell you everything you need to know, but I have to contact some people first. Mostly people smarter than me. Maybe I’ll just get Izzy to talk to you.” Mimi seemed to take a minute to consider things. “Oh, I don’t like lying, but it might be necessary in this case.”

         “Lying?” Peter asked, still trying to catch up with Mimi.

         “You need to give your Aunt and Uncle a reason for meeting up with me.”

         “Oh.”

         Mimi looked down and smiled sweetly. “It was nice meeting you, Yaamon. I hope you take good care of Peter.”

         The sudden serious expression on Yaamon’s face nearly broke the heavy atmosphere that had surrounded Peter when he found out he had to not only continue lying to his Aunt and Uncle but lie more. “You bet I will!”

        

         The night after their meeting, Peter lied to his Aunt and Uncle, and told them that Mimi wanted to get younger people involved in the gardening initiative, and he was interested. They both thought it was wonderful, considering he spent almost all of his current free time indoors, and so long as he made it home in time for dinner, which with Mimi could be assured, then there was nothing to be worried about. He showed them her contact info, and they helped him set up a time to meet with her. Since he would be all over the city with her, they even offered to get him his first phone.

         Peter felt a little sick.

         It soon passed that next Saturday when he met with Mimi in her apartment. She looked at his clothing, made a disapproving noise, and then led him to a computer that made his jaw nearly fall off. Of course, they were only using it for a video call. Mimi’s friend, Izzy, was only really there to keep her on track with an explanation of Digimon.

         Apparently, Peter was something called a Digidestined, also known as one of the Chosen Children. Yaamon was his partner, just like the little Digimon said, but it went a little further than that. Izzy apparently had a list of them, all across the world. Give or take one hundred and fifty children out of seven billion people across six occupied continents. On Izzy’s list, most of the Chosen Children had gotten their partners and Digivices around or soon after the original Chosen Children. In the past few years, no new ones had cropped up, and Izzy, being pragmatic, would know, seeing as he’d kept an eye on the Digital World. He apparently knew about Peter’s predicament before Peter knew about Peter’s predicament. What neither Izzy nor Mimi knew was why his Digivice came so late, or early, however you look at it, but they’d look into it.

         Despite the people who knew the most about this whole Digidestined business were still a little confused about the timing, Peter was welcomed with opened arms into what, essentially, was a secret club of real, live, superheroes. When they told him about their duty to protect both the Digital World and the real world from bad Digimon, Peter didn’t know whether to shout in excitement or faint in nervousness. Him? A superhero? People like Iron-Man, like Tony Stark, become superheroes, not kids with no friends from Queens.

         When Peter told Mimi he wasn’t sure if he was ready to be a superhero just yet, she didn’t bother to politely hide her laugh like she usually did. Then, she (very nicely) told him that he would only have to help them if it was necessary, only when he was a little older, and she and Palmon would absolutely make sure he didn’t get hurt. Although Yaamon objected to being treated like a baby, it made Peter feel a little better.

         Peter actually did help Mimi with her gardens. It was much nicer than he thought it’d be, and he wondered often how she did it all herself. And it really was by herself. No one in the neighborhoods came to work in the gardens on the days Mimi did, knowing that the girl would be content to do the work on her own. It made Peter a little angry, but whenever he saw Mimi’s face after the work was done, it faded.

         As they worked, Peter asked questions. At first, they were mainly about Mimi’s adventures in the Digital World, but then they became about the Digital World itself. The oddities both confused and intrigued him, and he wanted nothing more than to see it for himself. Finally, she declared him “Just as bad as Izzy!”, sat him back down in front of the computer, and opened up a voice chat with the same, sleep-deprived redhead he’d seen on his first day working with her.

         “Ask him your questions, because I don’t know! I’m going shopping.”

         Five hours later, Peter had the contact information for Izzy, times that were, in his words ‘More Appropriate’ to video call him, and an entirely new wardrobe courtesy of Mimi’s inability to allow her assistant to dress like he had no fashion sense.

         Through Mimi, Izzy sent him a communicator that each of the world’s Digidestined were given. The note said it was only to be used ‘In Case of Emergencies’, but as soon as Peter turned it on, it was flooded with welcome messages in a dozen different languages. It took him five minutes to figure out that, through the power of the Internet turned living creature turned back into technology, it had a universal translator button, and there was about a dozen or so different chatrooms for him to pick from that he could now make friends in. The pinned messages ranged from ‘Don’t be a snitch!’ to ‘Don’t say a word to Mr. Izzy!’

         When Peter brought it up in conversation with Mimi, she told him Izzy knew about every one of them, and in fact planned for this. They are kids, after all, and would want to talk to each other about what’s going on. There was an emergency override on everyone’s communicator if the need arose, similar to the sirens New York City was installing after witnessing the Iron-Man incident.

         Peter decided he liked being a Digidestined.

Notes:

Digimon
Short for Digital Monster. These creatures are native to the Digital World, and are entirely made out of data. Different communities of Digimon tend to amass together, often by their unique type. Weaker Digimon will also often form communities around the home of a stronger Digimon, which will in turn protect them. If a Digimon is completely destroyed, they will reform in the Primary Village. However, if this takes place in the real world away from a Digital Gate, the Digimon's data is lost.

Digital World
A world made entirely of data and technology. As technology progresses in the real world, the Digital World only becomes more complex, and the creatures within it more powerful. Due to the interconnected nature of the Digital World, if the Digital World is destroyed, the real world will fall soon after.

Digidestined
The Digidestined, or Chosen Children, are marked by their Digivices and their partner Digimon. Their Digivices allow them to assist in their partner's digivolution in order to fight against threats to the harmony of the Digital World, or between the Digital World and the real world. The Digivice can also hold other powers, like when it was used to remove the Black Gears from Digimon on File Island.

Chapter 3

Notes:

This one is a little shorter, so I'll be posting the next chapter later today!

        A year later, Peter knew all he could about the Digital World. At least, he did for someone who had never been there before. He spent his time collecting information from Izzy and from the Digimon of Digidestined who had been there before they became someone’s partner. The relatively small group meant that there were almost no secrets among them and that all information was free-flowing. If Peter wanted to know something, he simply needed to ask.

         Also a year later, it was Izzy who shattered the semi-peaceful existence. “There’s some new Digidestined, here in Japan.”

         Peter immediately jumped at the news. “Does that mean that I just got my Digivice earlier than them?”

         “No. Strangely, their Digivices are completely different than ours, while yours is the same. On top of that, they can open a Digital Gate rather than having to wait for one to open from the other side,” Izzy got that dazed look in his eyes, the one he usually had when he was contemplating something.

         “Digital Gate?”

         “It’s what we call an opening to the Digital World. Their Digivices can open one, but something on the other side is blocking ours from doing so.”

         “Would it hurt to try?” Peter asked.

         “Not really. Make sure to tell me what happens either way. If you or Mimi can open a Gate in America, it’ll be useful. They could use all the help they can get.” With that Izzy hung up, and Peter realized he never told Peter how opening a Digital Gate worked. He put it off until the next day when he would see Mimi and could ask her.

         Her answer nearly made him want to forget the whole thing. “Oh, from what my friends said, they just point their Digivice at the computer and yell ‘Digiport, open!’ or something. Kinda lame, right? You can use the computer if you want to try.”

         Yaamon nearly vibrated through his arms with excitement by the time they made it to the computer as if he was expecting something to actually happen. Peter, armed with his Digivice, pointed it at the screen and whisper-shouted, “Digiport, open!”

         And open, it did.

 

         Indescribable. That was the first world both Mimi and Izzy had used when Peter asked about the Digital World. Now, Peter knew why.

         The stars were backwards, or maybe upsidedown. Peter didn’t know much about astronomy, but they weren’t supposed to be like that. There were also stars, despite the sun being the brightest thing in the world, beating directly down into his eyes. And the moon. The moon was too big, way too big. But as soon as he thought that it… backed off a bit. They were laying in the desert, the hotness of the sands evident on any exposed part of his skin, but if he tilted his head slightly he could see a flourishing forest, with no traces of the winds that effected to dunes harming the lush trees. Was that a TV?

         “Yaamon?” Peter called, not sure if he was ready just yet to lift his head and confirm that the weight on his chest was indeed the Digimon. Yaamon, thankfully, moved to his range of vision.

         “Here, Petey!” The Digimon moved off of him. “And right now, it’s Impmon.” Peter took stock of the change and snorted audibly as he sat up. It looked like Yaamon grew a body, arms, and legs. The brown fuzz had changed to white, and his ears grew a little longer. He had a round torso, skinny legs, and clawed feet, and what he suspected were clawed hands hidden by red gloves, that Peter did not want to get in the way of. The image on his stomach resembled a smiling emoji, only with dead eyes and sharp teeth.

         “Is this the Digital World?” Peter asked, then mentally smacked himself. Ya- Impmon wouldn’t know. He’s never been here. “Scratch that. How do we get back?”

         “We just got here,” Impmon whined. “Now you wanna go back?”

         “Yes, I wanna go back. Mimi and Izzy and their friends were stuck here for months, and they had to forage for food and stuff. D’you wanna forage for your own food, or eat Aunt May’s homemade cookies?” Peter threw his Digimon a pointed look. Impmon grumbled but relented to the logic.

         Peter looked around them for anything resembling a gate, when he noticed what he thought was a TV on his first look. It wasn’t a TV, but it was a computer monitor. The boxy kind like this always made him think it was a TV. But, considering what it really was, this was probably his ticket out of here. He aimed his Digivice.

         “Digiport, open!”

         In less than a second, he and Im-Yaamon, that weight was definitely Yaamon, were in a pile on the floor of Mimi’s apartment, right next to her computer. In the doorway stood a very concerned looking Mimi, on the phone with who Peter could only assume was Izzy. As soon as she saw them, she muttered something along the lines of, “Call it off, they’re back now.” before coming to aid Peter in extracting himself from his own limbs.

         “I didn’t expect you to actually be able to do it.” She said, smiling in spite of herself.

         “Neither did I,” Peter mumbled to the floor. Then, to Mimi, he asked, “So, when do you wanna visit Palmon?”  

 

         Peter finished tying the blue cloth around Yaamon’s ear, double-knotting it to make sure it would stay in place. The cloth was thicker than a ribbon, almost like a rag or a bandanna, but the inner lining held his initials, thankfully all three of them, just in case his ‘stuffed animal’ got ‘lost’. It was Mimi’s idea to give Yaamon a new accessory, just like it always is, but this was definitely one of her better ones. When he finished, it looked a little like it was covering something up, like a stain, a rip, or a patch. “What happens to this when you digivolve?” Peter asked.

         “No clue.” Yaamon flicked his ear, trying out the new accessory. “Does it look cool?”

         “It makes you look like you belong with somebody,” Peter said after careful consideration. Ever since Yaamon learned the word ‘cool’, he’d been obsessed with it, and denied the fact that he was anything but. It grated on Peter’s nerves if it went on too long, but in truth, he found it endearing.

         Scooping Yaamon into his arms, he walked out into the living room, feeling the Digimon stiffen slightly in his arms, then sat down for mandatory family time with his Aunt and Uncle. As he carefully placed Yaamon in his seat, then maneuvered a blanket around both of them so that he could also see the TV, but Peter could still sneak food to him, he could feel the stares of his family.

         He sighed internally. At first, they thought it was cute that he spent time with the ‘stuffed animal’ and slept with it, despite its odd features and the fact that he sometimes spoke to it when they weren’t looking. Then, Peter wanted to Yaamon everywhere, and they stopped thinking it was cute, and started thinking he latched onto the stuffed animal because he had no friends. That’s probably why they let him spend so much time with Mimi, despite the age difference.

         From their point of view, he was eleven, almost twelve now, and he was dragging a stuffed animal everywhere, spilling his most inner thoughts to it, and overall pretending its alive (he knows they’ve seen him sneak Yaamon a chip or two during family time once or twice). Since he never did any of this before Yaamon showed up, he knew it looked at least a little off, but he had no idea what to do about it, so he just decided to continue on until the time something came of it.

         Thankfully, his Aunt and Uncle decided that that time would not be tonight.

 

         Despite Peter’s ability to open a Digiport in America, he soon found out that, like the entirety of the old guard of Chosen Children, Impmon couldn’t digivolve anywhere near the Dark Towers. This relegated him and Mimi to messengers and back-up rather than anything resembling what the newer Chosen Children could do. None of this stopped Mimi and Peter from helping out the best they could, especially when the new guard had already brought down a Dark Tower. There was a slight problem, however.

         Impmon, no matter where he was in the Digital World, Dark Tower or no Dark Tower, couldn’t seem to digivolve past his rookie form. It was almost like he was overly affected by the things, and Peter felt awful just bringing him along if he was going to be affected like this.

         Impmon, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind.

         “Rookie or not, I can still be more useful than a million o’ those other guys!” He said, adjusting the cloth that had moved from his ear to his neck when he’d digivolved after coming through the Gate.

         Currently, he and Impmon were helping to rebuild yet another village after the so-called Digimon Emperor’s attack had been stopped. The Yokomon were grateful for the help clearing out the rubble, but that’s really all he and Impmon could do at this point. Tomorrow, once everything was cleared out, he’d come back and help them start to rebuild their homes.

         Peter raised an eyebrow at that and continued collecting pieces of his destroyed structures. He thought he was subtle, but Impmon’s next outburst proved him wrong.

         “Hey!” The Digimon shouted at him as Peter picked up speed, trying to get away from the headbutt that was about to happen. He only stopped when he reached the ever-growing pile of rubble that Impmon’s fire attack would get rid of. Once he dropped what was in his hands, Peter turned around, a smile on his face.

         “Don’t worry Impmon, you’ll always be the coolest to m- OOF!,” He was cut off with a headbutt to the stomach. As he curled in on his stomach, laughing with tears in his eyes, all he could think was, ‘At least his head isn’t as hard as Veemon’s.'

Notes:

Digimon:
Impmon
Impmon is a naturally strong-willed Digimon. He hides any sign of weakness behind flashy feats of strength. Impmon is naturally mischievous, but his worst pranks are directed towards those he doesn't like. His most common attack is Bada Boom, a fire attack that uses dark flames and small explosions to hit his opponents.
Palmon
Palmon is a plant Digimon, an all green Digimon with a flower growing out of her head. Her most common attack is Poison Ivy where the vines that make up her fingers grow and attack her opponent. They can be used as whips, or to entrap them.
Yokomon
Yokomon are small, plant-like Digimon, often mistaken for flowers. They have many root-like feet and digivolve into Biyomon. Yokomon tend to group together and live in a village at the foot of a volcano, where a large, fire Digimon Meramon protects them.
Veemon
Veemon is an ancient Digimon who slept beneath the Digimental of Courage, waiting for the Digidestined who could remove the egg and set him free. Once Davis, his partner, released him, the two led the new group of Chosen Children in their fight to save the Digital World.

Chapter 4

        A few months after Peter turned twelve, the new Chosen Children completed their first objective and took down the Digimon Emperor, also known as some kid named Ken Ichijouji. The second, incredibly daunting, objective still remained; rebuild the Digital World. The first part seemed obvious. Take out all the remaining Dark Towers, Dark Rings, and Dark Spirals, and the Digital World would be able to help right itself, with some help. The rest would take time and a whole lot of effort, but it would get there.

         So, the new guard of Chosen Children set about trying to remove the Towers, while the rest started to help deconstruct the innumerable constructions of the Digimon Emperor and rebuild the communities that once were.

         And when Ken Ichijouji asked to atone for his crimes, with tear-stained cheeks and more threatening to spill over from his eyes, his partner that everyone swore was dead held tightly to his chest, no one thought twice about allowing him to help, not even the Digimon.

         Peter and Mimi spent more and more time in the Digital World, feeling an obligation to help out as much as they could. She introduced him and Impmon to Elecmon at Primary Village, and left him to play with, or rather babysit, with Impmon while she and Elecmon caught up. Eventually, the baby Digimon ran both Peter and Impmon ragged, and simply sat on top of the both of them, jumping up and down, yelling ‘Play! Play!’ over and over again.

         Peter eventually rolled over and pulled an increasingly agitated Impmon out of the way. “Mimi! Please help!” He practically begged as the hoard of baby Digimon made a move to jump on his stomach.

         “Enough roughhousing!” Elecmon yelled in a booming voice, which caused all of the baby Digimon to begin laughing, then scatter, but only for the moment. Peter knew it was only for the moment, simply because this had already happened three times in the two hours they’d been there.

         Both Mimi and Palmon hid a giggle behind their hands, and Palmon used her vines to help the exhausted pair stand. “Oh, Peter, we got a message from the others while you were playing!”

         The smile on his face fell. “Are they in trouble?”

         “No, but they have something they want us to check out. Do you need to be home soon?”

         “I have a few more hours before I need to go, we can check it out.” Peter immediately began scanning the sky, on the lookout for the flying members of their group. “Is it nearby?”

         “I think so. TK and Kari are about five minutes out.”

         TK and Kari were both members of the original group of Digidestined. They were younger than the original members, though, young enough that they were still around his age while everyone else from that group was at least in high school. Their Digivices had changed in order to accommodate the new type of digivolution, Armor-Digivolution, that allowed them to change while still in proximity of the Dark Towers.

         TK’s Digimon, Patamon, a very round, little orange and beige sort of thing that had large wings for ears and could shoot exploding bubbles as an attack, would become Pegasusmon, and Gatomon, a white, cat-like Digimon that stood on two legs, punched anyone who was in her way, and who was naturally a Champion level Digimon, was able to transform into Nefertitimon. Both were able to fly, which was useful for situations like this one.

         It took just under five minutes for Peter to see the small group off in the distance. As soon as he knew the gesture would be seen, he waved, and then elbowed Impmon in the side until his partner did too. Grumbling, his partner reluctantly waved once, then went back to fumbling with the cloth around his neck.

         “You missed all the babysitting fun.” Peter ran up to TK, ready to return the offered high five before Impmon stole it.

         “Don’t worry.” Mimi sauntered past both him and lightly smacked TK on the hand he was still holding out for his American friend. “I took video.” 

         Peter felt the blood nearly drain out of his face as his head dropped into his hands. He could practically feel Impmon shaking with the effort it took not to laugh at his embarrassment at the fact that there was video of him trying to teach Duck-Duck-Goose to a bunch of rambunctious baby Digimon, which would no doubt make its rounds among the Chosen Children’s various chatrooms.

          “Stop teasing him, Mimi,” Kari said, although Peter heard something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Send me that later.’ “We’re on a time restraint.”

         Peter narrowed his eyes. “Why are you guys here right now, anyways? Isn’t it like,” Peter paused to do some mental calculations, then gave up. “It’s either super late or really early where you are.”

         “We’re on vacation right now, so we’re camping here and trying to get as much done as possible,” TK said as he pulled Peter onto Pegasusmon’s back. “It’s only for a few more days, though, so we’ll be seeing a bit less of each other unless we specifically plan it over text.”

         “What did you tell your parents?”

         “What do you mean?” Kari asked.

         “If you’ve been gone for a few days, where do your parents think you are?” Peter asked. “At each other’s houses?”

         “Well, Cody and Davis are pretending to be at TK’s house, and Yolei at mine, but that’s only because their parents don’t know, not yet,” Kari said. “If things keep going this way, we might have to tell them, seeing how much time we spend here. But TK’s mom and my parents both know about Digimon and our responsibilities, so they allow us a little bit of leeway.”

         After that admission, Peter decided not to ask any more questions until they made it to wherever it was they were going.

 

         “Where are we?”

         Stone. They were surrounded by shattered stone that once used to be something, packed dirt that every few feet allowed grass to grace their presence, and bits and pieces of the sky. The real question wasn’t really ‘Where are we?’, but rather, ‘Where did this used to be?’

         “Ruins,” TK answered. In spite of himself, a small shiver went up Peter’s spine. He’d seen ruins around the Digital World before, plenty of them, but the only ones he really bothered to enter were the fresh ones in search of survivors. “C’mon, it’s up here.”

         “Mind telling me what exactly I’m going to be messing with before I do any messing?” Peter asked, minding his step.

         No one answered for a while. When Kari finally took pity on him, it was still too little of one for his liking. “We think it might have to do with a Crest of some sort, but we’re not entirely sure how.”

         “You mean like Mimi’s necklace?” Impmon asked. Then, to clarify, “The fancy-looking green and gold one she's always wearing.”

         Mimi smiled. “That’s my Crest of Purity. Do you really think that this is a new Crest?”

         She shrugged. "Izzy isn't done doing his thing, but he thinks its a possibility.”

         By the time they entered the chamber where the supposed Crest (and Tag, as Peter found out along the way) waited, Izzy, who had been busy at work deciphering the writings on the wall with the help of his Digimon partner Tentomon and his trusty laptop, was muttering to himself in a daze.

         “Izzy, we’re back!” TK called, rather loudly, but Izzy continued working as if he hadn’t heard anything. Peter wondered whether he had or not. Izzy’s reputation for being a workaholic was legendary, even among the younger and the foreign Digidestined. TK tried once again, this time both closer and louder, “Izzy, we’re back!”

         Izzy jolted back, just barely catching himself before he found himself on the ground. “Oh, you’re back.” TK simply shook his head and let Kari take over.

         “We brought Mimi and Peter, but we thought it was better to let you do the explanation since you’ve been doing the translation.”

         Izzy waved them over as he stood up, and Peter noticed how gaunt his face looked, like he hadn’t slept much. Or at all. “The Crest that’s been placed here is called the ‘Crest of Responsibility’. According to what I have so far, its activation marks the beginning of a great battle that will decide the very fate of the Digital World. Or so this part of the wall says.”

         Peter went wide-eyed. “S-so why not just leave it there, then?”

         Izzy raised an eyebrow at him. “Just because we leave it in there doesn’t mean whatever evil it’s going to warn us against won’t come. We just won’t be warned. Besides,” Izzy continued, trying to translate and talk at the same time. “We think it might be yours.”

         “Mine? You have a catalog of about a hundred Digidestined to pick from right there on your laptop, why would this one be mine?”

         Rather than responding, Izzy simply pointed to a section of the wall where, instead of any writing, a partial image was still intact. One that looked remarkably similar to…

         “Hey! Petey, that looks like me!” Impmon exclaimed, rushing over with a little too much gusto as he tripped over a stray rock and landed with a solid OOMPH! On the ground about a foot from where he started. Peter absentmindedly shook his head as he walked over, a little more carefully than his partner, and knelt down to inspect the image.

         Yes, the half of it that remained looked very much like his partner’s rookie form, right down to the cloth around his neck that Peter had placed there himself. But that didn’t mean anything, right?

         “Do you know what this part over here says?” Peter asked.

         “Not exactly,” Izzy said, and Peter immediately decided that that phrase was his least favorite in the world. “This place isn’t in the best of shape. Half the stuff I need to translate is missing.”

         Peter hummed in acknowledgment as he leaned closer to the piece of stone. As soon as he felt his hand brush against it, a tingling sensation spread across the tips of his fingers, across his hand, and up his arm. A bright light began to shine from his pocket where he faintly remembered he had placed his Digivice, and Peter pulled the small device out. As soon as it was free, the light only increased from bright to blinding, and he was forced to cover his eyes with his other arm. After what seemed like an eternity, the light faded and Peter could remove the arm from in front of his face and open his eyes, which he hadn’t noticed he closed.

         There was no longer a stone in front of him. Where the partial wall-relief once stood, mocking the elements while still crumbling to bits before them, there was now a perfectly carved hole in the wall. Everyone in the room stared at Peter, full of anticipation. He desperately wanted to be anywhere but here, but reached around in the carved rock, nonetheless.

         His hand wrapped around a small, golden necklace, with something similar to a golden dog-tag hanging from the chain, but much, much thicker. The middle had a perfect rectangle cut into it, and the shape resembled a triangle with a corner cut off attached to half of a hexagon. At the bottom looked like one of the hieroglyphs that Izzy had spent who knows how long translating.

         “It’s a Tag.” At some point, Mimi moved to lean over Peter’s shoulder and see what he had pulled out. “Which means you have a Crest!”

         “If you just pulled out the Tag, it also means that your Crest probably isn’t here,” Izzy said. His voice sounded a little disappointed. Peter didn’t know why, because considering his Crest was now a harbinger of some Digi-Apocalypse, he didn’t know if he wanted the thing.

         TK hummed to himself. “Izzy, you already took pictures of everything, right?”

         Izzy nodded, then began to pack up. TK turned to Peter and Mimi. “We need to get Izzy to a Gate so he can get home before he passes out. Then we can take you guys home!”

         Peter furrowed his brow, confused. “Shouldn’t we… Don’t you guys want to find the Crest?” He asked, slightly confused.

         Kari smiled at him as she extended a hand to help him to his feet. Peter eagerly accepted. “It could be anywhere in the Digital World. We mostly found all of ours by a mix of luck, accident, and fate. I’m sure you’ll find it when you need to, considering all the time we’ll be spending here.” She paused, a sad look crossing her face for a few seconds. Peter blinked, and it was gone. “And finding it where it is doesn’t always mean you’ll be able to take it immediately or use it right away. Though while we’re on the look-out, Izzy can figure out who our next big baddie will be, and you can help us figure out how to take him out!”

         Before Peter could say anything about how he’s not really a fighter, how his Digimon hasn’t really figured out how to even digivolve after almost two years, and how all he’s ever done in the Digital World was pass messages, small skirmishes, and build villages. Before Peter could even mention that maybe, just maybe, he’s not the right one to put their hopes on for any sort of ‘Save the World’ gig (so could they just pass this Crest to someone who knows how to use it please?), Impmon stole his chance.

         “Heck yeah!” Impmon shouted, right next to his ear. “I told ya I was cooler ‘n a million o’ those other guys. We’re totally gonna beat bad Digi-butt!”

         Peter, despite all that was happening, couldn’t help but smile at his partner’s antics.

        

         After Izzy had been dropped off with his things at the nearest Gate possible and sent through by TK, Kari invited Mimi and Peter to eat with them before he went back.

         “But I understand if you need to get back.” She said, Digivice already in hand and ready to fly him to the Gate. Mimi, who appointed herself official time-keeper due to Peter’s tendency to be an airhead when he got too into any task and Impmon’s ‘Like I need a curfew, I’m the world’s coolest Digimon!’ attitude, told them all they had plenty of time before Peter had to go home.

         Allowing Mimi take point with the rest of their human companions, with Palmon and Impmon walking amiably behind them, Peter fiddled with the Tag now hanging around his neck. He never really asked all too much about them, or what they really did, considering he didn’t get one when Yaamon’s egg came out of the computer. He was more interested in stuff that he could one day do or see, rather than stuff that didn’t have to do with him.

         “Don’t think about it too much.”

         Peter glanced up at Mimi, expecting to see her looking at him again, but she was still walking ahead of him, facing forward with her head held high. He looked back down at the Tag one more time, then tucked it safely beneath his shirt before running to catch up with the others.

         Over the past almost-two-years, Peter had gotten used to eating lots of different kinds of food. The kids that talked through the various Chosen Chatrooms liked to send presents, and a lot of them sent baked goods. Although he’d asked the rest of the Digidestined not to send anything to his apartment specifically, seeing as he had no way to explain a bunch of random kids around the world suddenly knowing him, most of them decided that sending them to Mimi was the best way around that. The one shared denominator between Digimon, it seemed, was their insatiable appetite.

         Kari called attention to everyone in the group, gathering the remainder of the new Chosen Children camping out. Yolei and Cody and their partners, Hawkmon and Armadillomon, quieted quickly, while Davis and Veemon continued to talk animatedly around someone sitting on the ground. When Peter took a second glance at who it was, his smile was slightly more strained. Ken Ichijouji and his partner, Wormmon, sat towards the edge of the picnic as if they were trying to keep themselves as far away from everyone else.

         “Human picnic.” Kari pointed to a pile of food that looked like it would feed more than everyone here. “Digimon picnic.” Peter turned his head in time with Impmon and just barely saw his eyes widen at the sheer amount of food piled up.

         “Woah,” Was Peter’s only reply. Impmon forwent any words and immediately raced Veemon for the chips. “Impmon! You will share.”

         Only once he spotted Impmon splitting the bag of chips he’d just one in the Digital World’s quickest and friendliest wrestling match did Peter turn away from the Digimon and sit down with the rest of the humans in order to get his share of the food. As he made himself a plate, he noticed everyone else was staring at him and struggling to keep smiles off of their faces.

         Peter’s hand paused halfway between the plate and his mouth. “What?”

         “It’s you and Impmon,” TK said, pretending to thoughtfully tap his chin. “Did Mimi or Izzy ever tell you about Devimon?”

         Peter winced. “They told me enough.” He knew about how the devil Digimon ripped File Island apart, separated the group of Digidestined, and used something called Black Gears to turn Digimon into mindless monsters, which were far too similar to the Dark Rings.

         Kari chewed on her fingernail, nervously considering what exactly to say next. “None of us have had the best experience with devil type Digimon. When Mimi told us about Impmon, we were surprised, and a little cautious. But, whenever we see you with him, we’re reminded that he's just another silly Digimon." She looked over at the Digimon in question, who was demanding to wrestle the others for the right to eat the last bag of gummy worms. "If a little too hotheaded at times.”

         “And the way you keep his ego in check is kind of hilarious,” Yolei added as she casually took a sip from her juice box.

         Peter ducked his head and felt his ears turn pink, for once grateful for the fact that since he hadn’t gotten it cut in a while, the curls covered most of his blush. He took this opportunity to stuff food into his mouth so he could avoid having to answer any questions they would ask him because after that he really didn’t think he could. After the second mouthful of random assortments thrown into his mouth, Peter felt a familiar buzz in his pocket. Pulling out his communicator, he saw a rather unfamiliar message gracing the screen, one that he didn’t actually know was possible.

         ‘INBOX FULL’.

         Using one hand, he flipped through the messages.

         ‘Just woke up and found out about New York.’

         ‘Anyone hear from Petey or Mimi?’

         ‘Got an eye on the news here. Anyone got his cellphone #?’

         ‘Doesn’t he live in Queens? Someone w/ good Internet, look up what’s happening there!’

         ‘Mimi lives in Brooklyn, packages all go there. Do u think they met up, went to some shelter 2gether?’

         Every chatroom he’d ever been a part of, every person he’d ever messaged, all of them were trying to get ahold of him and Mimi due to something that happened in New York City. Something incredibly bad. The more he read, the more confused he became about the situation. Some sort of monsters invading New York through some sort of portal, destroying parts of the city.

         “Mimi,” Peter said, unable to take his eyes away from the messages. “We need to go home. Now.”

        

         Too quiet. Too much dust in the air, distant crying, sobbing, outside the window a familiar skyscraper had a hole in it, and all of it all at once threw Peter into a panicked mindset. Absentmindedly, he squeezed Yaamon, knowing in the back of his mind that the Digimon would protest under normal circumstances to such treatment. There was no grumbling.

         The others didn’t want them to go home, not until they knew it was safe to go through the Gate. Peter and Mimi wanted to check on their families immediately. Seeing this, Peter couldn’t help but think they might’ve been right.

         To his side, Mimi adjusted her hat and grabbed his hand. He looked at her, hoping the teen had an idea of what to do. His mind forgot to register that she was squeezing a little too hard.

         She led him to room away from the windows and told him to sit for a moment, then tried to make a few calls, hoping that any of them would get through. When none of them did, she sighed. The panicked look Peter had when they first came through the Gate was now faded, but it was still clear in his eyes.

         She kneeled on the ground in front of him and forced him to focus on her. “Peter, we need to find someone who can help us find your Aunt and Uncle and my parents. Are you alright to go outside?”

         Peter readjusted his still-tight grip on Yaamon, then nodded.

         Subways were closed, most entrances shuttered off. The trio passed no one on the street, and any cars they saw were empty. The dust that had settled on all the windows at Mimi’s apartment was thick in the air. Peter lifted his shirt up to filter some of it out, while Mimi took the pink cloth out of her hair in order to cover her face. Yaamon, lacking arms, relied on Peter to cover his mouth for him.

          “What do you think did this?” Peter asked, his voice muffled but clearly audible in the eerie quiet of the city street. “A Digimon?”

         “No. Any Digimon that would do this, we would know about beforehand.”

         The parts of the city that were hit the worst by whatever had happened were in the opposite direction of Peter’s home, so as they closer to Queens and the Parker apartment, Peter stopped for a moment to tie Yaamon’s cloth back onto his ear and allow Mimi to tie her hair back up.

         Somewhere behind him, he heard his Aunt May scream, “Peter!” and in an instant Mimi let go of his hand to allow him to turn around. Before he could even pretend to have seen her, May nearly suffocated both him and Yaamon in a steel grip (lifting him a solid inch-and-a-half off of the ground in her relief despite his recent growth spurt).

         “We had no idea where you were, we checked everywhere,” His Aunt cried right into his ear, which nearly spurred on a set of tears of his own. Through the long strands of hair that were blocking his eyes, he could see the relieved face of his Uncle Ben smiling at him. “Why on Earth didn’t you bring your phone with you? That’s the entire reason we got you one, in case something like this happened.”

          “May,” Uncle Ben said, a small warning in his tone of voice. Peter’s Aunt pulled back slightly, but she still refused to let go of his shoulders. “I think it would be best if we all went inside. Mimi, you should come with us until we can contact your parents. I don’t like the idea of you trying to get home alone.”

         The teen nodded and thanked him, letting the Parker family take lead up into their apartment where Peter and Mimi were promptly sat down on the couch and told to stay, while Aunt May and Uncle Ben collected rags, bowls of water to clean their, apparently dusty despite the covers, faces and first aid kits as a just-in-case.

         As Aunt May passed by him on her way to the bathroom cabinet in order to collect the heavy-duty first aid kit, which meant she must be truly, deeply worried, Peter continued to stare down at Yaamon in his arms, fiddled with the chain of the Tag around his neck, and tried to think of something to say to his Aunt and Uncle about where he’d been during the whatever had happened.

          If they asked him any details about the event, he knew he would have no idea what to say. All of the messages were vague, simply saying something about monsters attacking New York City, half of them wondering if some sort of Digital Gate had opened in the sky. He knew that images were on the news, but he and Mimi had thankfully returned after all the commotion. There was no way that they'd have missed all they did, even if they stayed inside Mimi's house the entire time. Peter, after his almost-two-years of dealing with Digimon and Chosen Children, thought he might have an answer that wouldn’t make his stomach turn.

         “Mimi,” He whispered, turning his head slightly to the teen sitting next to him on the couch. “Do you think I should tell them?”

         Skipping right over wondering what he wanted to tell them, because there’s really only one secret Peter could ever really keep all too well, and right into contemplation, Mimi came back with a shrug. “All of our parents found out on accident, and after that, they had to accept it, or deal with some really bad consequences. I think the real question is, do you think you should?”

         By the time Aunt May and Uncle Ben finally collected all of their supplies, set everything up on the table, and decided the rags they were using could be ruined, Peter’s head was held high with determination at his decision.

         “Aunt May, Uncle Ben, I have something to tell you about where we were today,” Peter started, glancing first at Mimi, then at Yaamon. “But I think you won’t believe me until we show you.”

         Instantly, Yaamon fell out of his stiffened state, grateful for the ability to relax in the home. Then, remembering something of the manners Peter had tried to teach him, he popped back to attention, turned to his partner’s family, and said, “Nice to officially meet’ya! My name is Yaamon, and I’m Peter’s Digimon Partner!”

         If Aunt May hadn’t already fainted, she would’ve screamed.

Notes:

Digimon -

Patamon
An incredibly optimistic Digimon that resembles a large guinea pig. Patamon is orange and beige in color and has bat-like wings for ears, which he can use to fly for short distances. His most common attack is Boom Bubble which shoots a small amount of concentrated air at his opponent.
Gatomon
A white cat-like Digimon that walks on two legs. She wears yellow gloves that only expose her deadly claws. The power ring on her tail increases the power of her punches. Unlike the rest of the Digidestined's Digimon, Gatomon remains in Champion form naturally due to events of her past.
Elecmon
Elecmon is the caretaker for Primary Village. He lovingly watches over the newly hatched Digimon and fends off any intruders. He is quick to rush to battle to defend his charges, but once you prove you are an ally, he will defend you just as fiercely.
Pegasusmon/Nefertitimon
Pegasusmon and Nefertitmon are the Armor-Digivolved forms of Patamon and Gatomon, respectively. Patamon must use the Digimental of Light, while Gatomon must use the Digimental of Hope, which were TK and Kari's original Crests. Pegasusmon resembles an armored Pegasi, while Nefertitimon resembled a female Sphinx with wings.

Tags and Crests
What allowed the original Digidestined's Digimon to digivolve past the Champion level were the Tags and Crests. The Tags are identical golden necklaces, while each Crest is a small, rectangular object that is unique to each individual. They are only able to be activated when that individual embodies what the Crest represents. The original Crests were those of Courage, Friendship, Purity, Honesty, Knowledge, Love, Light, Hope, and Kindness. The second generation of Digidestined adopted their symbols through the Digimentals, which allowed them to Armor-Digivolve.

 
The Digimon Emperor and His Creations
Ken Ichijouji, the holder of the Crest of Kindness, was corrupted by a dark force during an early trip to the Digital World. He was compelled to create Dark Towers, which would block digivolution. These Dark Towers would also be the control centers for the Dark Rings and Dark Spirals, which turned any Digimon that wore them into mindless slaves. Ken was able to cause such destruction to the Digital World because he held the belief that Digimon were not real creatures.
Only his partner Wormmon believed that Ken could return to the way he was before, a kind, loving boy deserving of the Crest he was chosen to wield.

Chapter 5

            Two years after what people called the Battle of New York and the city fully rebuilt itself. The government carted the alien artifacts off to who knows where, and the clean-up effort, as well as the rebuilding effort, was the fastest out of any disaster Peter’s ever seen or heard of. When Peter commented on it one day shortly after the subways reopened, Uncle Ben joked that it was because it wasn’t funded by the actual government, and they left it there. Overall, Peter was happy that no Digimon were involved, but also slightly upset that he missed actual, real-life aliens. When he expressed his thoughts on the matter, Aunt May promptly swatted him on the back of the head and told him he had enough to worry about without adding extraterrestrials into the mix.

            Two years passed since the Avengers were first formed, Stark Tower turned into Avengers Tower, and a team of real-life, honest to God, superheroes, including both Captain America and Iron-Man, took up residence in New York City. For the first few days after the attack, Peter sent several dozen messages telling everyone he was alright and assumed Mimi was doing the same. The conversation among the Digidestined quickly shifted to a shared regret.

            If only. If only they were there, if only they knew what was happening, if only they fought alongside the Avengers. They might just be kids, but they could protect people with the power they had. Somehow, Izzy got word of where everyone’s conversations were heading and used his technology-God powers to set everyone straight.

            The Digidestined and their Digimon partners weren’t chosen to protect the Earth from aliens. They were supposed to protect the two worlds from threats of the digital kind. Yet, things like the Chitauri were similarly dangerous and lacked the ability to reform once destroyed, like Digimon do with their data. Conversation quickly turned back to normal, everyday things, with only occasional mentions of Avengers’ sightings.

            Two years or so passed since Mimi left town. A month after the invasion, her father jumped at the change to transfer to anywhere but New York. Apparently, her parents could handle the Digimon. They could even handle Mimi going to the Digital World and fighting alongside her Digimon. But, when it was something new, something that needed a guy like the Hulk to fight it, they seemed to draw the line. Mimi didn’t bother to argue that she’d seen Tai and Matt fight a few guys that could hit like the Hulk (and maybe even a little harder, if she thought about it).

            She left her old laptop with Peter, promising him again and again that it was alright, and that she’d be able to get a new one when she got settled. She sent him her new phone number and her new address. Peter sent her homemade cookies courtesy of Aunt May, and Mimi kept sending him outfits so he wouldn’t ‘Look like he just fell out of a washing machine.’

            Two years had passed since Peter told his Aunt and Uncle the truth. Once the words started to spill from his mouth, he just couldn’t seem to stop them. He told them about how Yaamon had come to him, specifically, how that meant he was a Chosen Child, how he’d helped so much in the Digital World since he’d started going, and how Yaamon was the best friend he’d ever had.

            It took a lot of convincing, cajoling, promises to be safe, demonstrations that, yes, he could come back each and every time he traveled through the Digital Gate, and video chats with resident human expert Izzy for them to fully accept this side of him and the fact that he might, just sometimes, have to be in danger. They did, however, immediately take a liking to Yaamon and the more brash side of Peter that he brought out. The little Digimon more often than not spent time watching TV with Aunt May on the couch whenever Peter was busy, was allowed to sneak food off of Uncle Ben’s plate when the man ‘wasn’t looking’ and got to lick the spoon whenever Aunt May baked.

            Two years of rebuilding the Digital World and the Chosen Children had made quite a bit of progress themselves. Ken had grown out of his shell, and Digimon no longer shied away when they saw him. Several villages were rebuilt, sturdier than they had been before, although the small group of Digidestined who could access the Digital World on a semi-regular basis still had their work cut out for them in both returning the world to a state of peace and keeping it that way. During long weekends, Peter spent several days at a time in the Digital World, helping out and searching for his Crest.

            Only three months or so had passed since his Uncle Ben had died.

            After Mimi left, Peter continued to tend to the gardens, taking special care of the one in their neighborhood. He didn’t want her work to be in vain, and he few people cared about the upkeep, and even less knew how to do it. One night, he worked a little too late while trying to get all of the plants repotted. He ignored Yaamon’s warnings about the time over and over again, and by the time he was done, it was dark. What Peter didn’t know, was that his Uncle Ben came to get him.

            When Peter walked out of the greenhouse, he saw his Uncle a little way down the street, flat on the ground with a pool of blood forming underneath him. A masked man with a gun took one look at Peter, then turned tail and ran.

            Immediately Peter ran to his Uncle’s side, fumbling around in his pockets for his regular cellphone. One hand gripped around his Digivice, and for a split second, an image of Impmon chasing down the gunman ran through his head. But, as if Uncle Ben read his mind, the older man grabbed his wrist and slowly shook his head.

            Peter made the call and kept his uncle talking as long as he could, trying to focus on anything but the sticky warmth he felt seeping through the man’s shirt. His uncle ignored his shaky assurances that he’d be alright and had the nerve to give Peter words of wisdom (rather than conserve his strength) as he lay dying on the side of the street. They were words Peter would never forget.

            The paramedics said that, unfortunately, his Uncle died long before they arrived.

 

            The funeral, condolences, and swift changes to the Parker household flew by Peter in the past three months as he prepared himself for high school without his Uncle by his side, but one constant remained. Yaamon remained a steadfast source of comfort, able to make Peter laugh no matter what mood he was in. The Digidestined of the chatroom, informed through the chain of chatter about his Uncle’s untimely death were comforting, but in a more intimate way than the rest of the neighborhood. Even though he wasn’t talking to any of them (he’d barely met any of them in person, and called only a handful more), he could talk to all of them just as easily as he could his Aunt.

            These were the reasons why Aunt May allowed him to bring Yaamon with him to his first day at his new school, despite the fact that he was far too old to be carrying around a stuffed animal. From his experience in middle school with being teased, Peter knew that it would be better if Yaamon hid in his bag until he could find some empty classroom to eat lunch in. The problem with that plan was that his partner refused to be stuck in a bag all day since he was allowed in a new place for the first time in months.

            So, for his first day at high school, Peter pushed open the doors, holding what to everyone else looked like the world’s weirdest stuffed animal, and tried not to draw any more attention to himself by hunching over whenever he walked and keeping Yaamon hidden behind desks in class.

            The pair didn’t even make it to lunch.

            In the hallway, between second and third period, a time during which Peter’s only thought was really ‘Thank God this day is already halfway done’, someone lobbed a very thick, very solid textbook towards Peter’s head. Whoever it was fortunately missed, but unfortunately still hit him in the back, throwing him completely off balance and making him decide between holding on to Yaamon, definitely crushing the little Digimon, and possibly catching himself with one arm, or dropping the little Digimon a few feet, which he knew the guy could hop on his own anyway, and catching himself with both hands. Peter chose the latter, hoping he could make it up to his friend at lunch by giving up his share of the chips.

            Peter scrambled to his knees as quickly as he could, and immediately located Yaamon. The Digimon hadn’t fallen out of his ‘stuffed animal’ even though he’d hit the tiled floor, probably thanks to the average number of tumbles Peter took in a week. Peter shuffled around to grab his glasses, which had fallen off his face when he hit the floor, and then sat back on his knees, ready to grab Yaamon again. Then, Peter’s worst fear was realized, and some stranger’s hands grabbed took hold of his partner before he could even think to move his arms.

            But, rather than having to fight for his Digimon back, the stranger extended on arm to Peter in order to help him up, while holding and uncomfortable looking Yaamon in his other arm.

            “You okay?” The stranger said as he hoisted Peter to his feet. As soon as Peter was steady, he immediately held Yaamon out, and Peter graciously took him. “I think Flash is the one who threw that. I went to middle school with him and he can be kind of a jerk sometimes.”

            Peter, who hadn’t really talked to anyone his age in a school setting outside of passing pleasantries, harsh teasing, or group projects, suspected this might be more than a little bit of passing small talk. The kid in front of him was on the heavy-set side, which sadly made him a target for most bullies. The shocking print on his shirt which surprisingly worked for him made him just a little bit too memorable. Peter was pretty sure they’d already had a class before, and if the way he was acting in that class, this kid wanted what Peter did: To be anything but memorable.

            “Is your toy okay?” There was no mocking tone to the word toy, no hint of a prank coming along in the next few minutes. For once, Peter smiled to someone he went to school with, and it felt genuine.

            “Don’t worry,” Peter said, patting the top of Yaamon’s head. “I’m a bit of a klutz, so he’s taken a few tumbles before.” He offered his hand to the kid. “Peter Parker.”

            “Oh, right, names,” The kid said, mostly to himself. “I’m Ned! Ned Leeds. Dude, you’ve gotta tell me where you got that. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

            Peter laughed nervously as the warning bell rang, freeing him from having to say anything. “Tell you at lunch?”

            “Deal.”

           

            As it turned out, Peter had every class with Ned Leeds except for second period, but considering their second periods were right next to each other, it didn’t matter all too much. Peter continued to bring Yaamon to school with him, Ned continued to ask him questions about the one-of-a-kind stuffed animal, and Peter continued to dodge them with the skill of a practiced non-liar.

            Through sheer persistence alone, Ned and Peter became fast friends, and soon became close friends. Whenever Peter went home at night and told his Aunt May about school, it always involved Ned. Whenever Peter would talk to the others in the chatroom, he would mention Ned and what they did that day at least once.

            For the first time since Uncle Ben’s death, Peter felt like things were returning to some semblance of normalcy. Sure, his newest, in-person friend thought his oldest, best friend was just a really cool looking stuffed animal, but Peter could pretend that was an inside joke if he tried hard enough.

            Then came the field trip.

            The day was already going to be a disaster, Peter knew it was. The first reason was that he had to leave Yaamon at home, alone, all day long. He couldn’t take any chances by bringing him into any of these science demonstrations, and Aunt May wasn’t going to be home until after he got back. So, poor Yaamon would be forced to watch reruns on the DVR and eat his emergency chips all day.

            The second reason was that he just felt like something was going to go wrong. The last time he got a gut feeling like this was on the first day of school, and that was the day he’d met Flash Thompson. Yeah, he met Ned that day too, but that evidence didn’t support his hypothesis, and thus was being discounted.

            Halfway through the tour, his suspicions were proven correct. He felt a prickle on his hand, swatted at it, surprised to actually hit something. In a panic over the fact that a spider just bit him in a facility where they tested on spiders, Peter screamed the shrillest shriek that had ever come out of his mouth. This, however, didn’t make anyone take him or his panic serious, nor did the babbling about how he’d just been bitten by a spider in a facility that used insects as tests subjects.

            “Spiders aren’t insects, Mr. Parker,” His teacher said to him in an attempt to calm him down. It didn’t work.

            Instead, Peter, who was determined to not be feeling very well due to a completely unrelated illness, was escorted to the bus by one of the chaperones, and very soon the excuse that he wasn’t feeling well became a reality. His Aunt was called at work, she took the rest of the day off, and he was picked up in front of the whole class, who weren’t even trying to hide the fact that they were still kind of laughing at him.

            At the same time, Peter was both really glad Ned wasn’t in that class with him, and really wished his friend was able to come along, if just for some moral support.

            Back at home, his May immediately turned into more of a mother hen than usual. Smothered with blankets, loaded up with multiple bowls of fresh, steaming chicken noodle soup and packets of crackers, and given orders not to get out of bed unless he absolutely had to, Peter was stuck staring at the now blurry ceiling while Yaamon tried to keep his worried chatter down. Every once in a while, Peter would answer him with a quiet hum, or even a full word, but eventually those turned into pained moans as his entire body began cramping.

            Sometime during the night, Peter’s fever grew dangerously high. Knowing that humans weren’t supposed to suddenly change in temperature so drastically, Yaamon left the room to alert Aunt May. Though when she came running to check on Peter, he wasn’t nearly as bad as the small Digimon said.

            “He’ll be okay, Yaamon,” She said quietly so as not to disturb Peter.

            “But it felt like I was laying next to Meramon just a minute ago…”

            Aunt May raised an eyebrow at him as a corner of her mouth raised. “I know you’re worried, but I promise you that he’s getting better. His fever is going down.” When Yaamon didn’t look satisfied at the answer, Aunt May sighed. “It might be bad now, but when he’s all better, he’ll be stronger for it.”

            Yaamon’s eyes flicked away from Aunt May for a moment as Peter turned over in his sleep. “Really?”

            “Mhm. Every sickness makes us just a little stronger.” Aunt May slowly picked herself up off of the bed and held her arms out for the Digimon. “Let’s go watch some TV. Peter needs to rest in order to get stronger.”

           

            Peter woke up confused. He was no longer baking in his own skin but shivering to death at the same time. Instead of feeling like he’d vomit at the sight of food, his stomach was ravenous. In fact, he felt like he could rival Yaamon at the breakfast table for once. His muscles ached in a strange way. They weren’t particularly like Peter remembered from when he last had the flu, or whatever this bug was comparable to, but more like after an intense day of work. It was as if every muscle in his body were strained from intense use. The worst part was that he couldn’t see.

            Well, he could see, just not well. It wasn’t any different than normal, but Peter swore that he’d fallen asleep with his glasses on. Aunt May might’ve taken them off his face while he slept, considering Yaamon’s lack of ability to do so, but a quick and incautious jab around on his bedside table proved that they weren’t there. Thinking that they fell off at some point, Peter groaned and flung his arm over his eyes to mentally prepare himself to get out of bed and search the floor blind.

            Which was when his forearm hit his glasses, which only made him more confused.

            Face screwed up in an incredible amount of confusion, Peter pulled them off of his face. Suddenly, the blurriness of his vision cleared. He put them back on his face. The blurriness came back. He took them off. The process repeated itself until Peter assured himself that, yes, the vision problems that made him wear glasses since he was five had suddenly fixed themselves overnight.

            Standing up was no problem. His legs held no trace of the post-sickness wobbly feeling that happened even after such a twenty-four-hour virus. The problem came when he went to open his bedroom door. His hand, his normal, fourteen-year-old human hand, crushed the doorknob like it was tinfoil, with a sound that was a mix between a creak of old wood about to snap and a very solid crunch of breaking it into a thousand splinters.

            In shock, Peter stared, still clutching onto the doorknob which now held an imprint of his hand. And stared. And stared. And stared. Peter stared, trying to make this make sense for far longer than he did with his newfound perfect vision. Finally, Peter gave up.

            “MAY!”

 

            “No.” Aunt May told her nephew for what had to be the thirtieth time that hour as he tried to unstick his hand from yet another random surface in their apartment. From somewhere on the counter behind her, she could hear Yaamon cackle as Peter, who finally freed his hand, fell on the floor from the sheer amount of effort he put in to do so. Again.

            “But Aunt May! I have superpowers now!” Peter protested, using the same line of logic, again. “I have to!”

            “What you have to do is figure out how to stop sticking to my counter so you can go back to school tomorrow morning.” As Peter let out a loud groan, May decided to try a different tactic. “Didn’t all of you Digi-kids agree not to do exactly what you’re asking me permission to do?”

            “Digimon only deal with digital problems, yeah,” Peter said, holding his hands in the air to avoid getting them stuck on anything else as he moved to sit down on a stool. Propping himself up on his elbows, he continued, “But I’m human, and this isn’t a digital thing, which means its fair game. I’d get everybody’s opinion if I wasn’t afraid I’d break my communicator, but I’m pretty sure the consensus would be a solid ‘Go for it.’.”

            “That’s just the thing, this isn’t a digital problem. It would be you out there, fighting and getting hurt!” Aunt May slowly put down the egg in her hand before she accidentally cracked it in frustration.

            Peter scowled, his enter face screwing up in irritation. “Aunt May, in a battle with bad Digimon, it wouldn’t just be Yaamon fighting. I would be at risk too. That’s why we’re called partners.” Peter’s tone was a mix of indignation and pride. “But as Digidestined, that’s what Yaamon and I are meant to do. Fight bad Digimon, protect the Digital World, deal with the digital problems that may come up around the real world. As Digidestined, we couldn’t help people like Mr. Delmar when his bodega got held up, we couldn’t stop the serial mugger that took police four months to track down, and we couldn’t do anything to help save Uncle Ben!”

            Tears ran down Peter’s cheeks, but he didn’t feel them. Any thought of making breakfast was abandoned by his Aunt as she ran to his side to envelope him in a bone-crushing hug. Faintly, he could feel Yaamon’s soft fur brushing against the side of his arm, in his own attempt at comfort.

            Peter pressed on. “But as me, with these powers, I can help those people. I can stop bad people, too. Yeah, maybe this is something I’ll have to do without Yaamon, but I still have to do it.” Great power, great responsibility.

            He felt Aunt May’s full-body sigh, then saw her soft smile, eyes marked with both an old weariness he knew well and a brand-new sorrow he’d gotten used to in recent months. “Since this is coming from the kid who hid trips to another world from me and your Uncle for an entire year, I don’t think I could talk you out of it if I tried.”

            Peter smiled half-heartedly.

            “But, Peter Benjamin Parker, I swear on all that is holy,” His Aunt said. Peter didn’t know whether to focus her slightly scowling face, or the fact that his elbows had at some point gotten stuck to the counter. “There will be rules.”

Notes:

Digimon
Meramon
Meramon is a humanoid Digimon whose body is made entirely of flames. A particular Meramon lives in the Mihirashi Mountain on File Island, near the Yokomon village. He lives in peace with the Yokomon, protects the village, and guards their water supply. In general, Meramon can be easily provoked, and tend to shoot with their flames first.

Chapter 6

Notes:

A chapter in which actual plot begins.

Also, I started school back up, and while this story will never be abandoned (I love it too much to do that) the chapters will probably be erratic. I will try my best to post at least once a month until the end, which should be possible right now because I spent the last month getting ahead.

           The Rules.

            There were only a few Peter had to follow in relation to his new gig as a teenage superhero, but Aunt May was a very strict woman when it came to Peter’s safety. If any one of them was broken, then he was grounded, the suit would be taken for a week, and he’d be put on probation. Any more infractions during that time and Peter wouldn’t see the suit for another month and probation would be extended. Aunt May made it very clear that, under no circumstances, there would not be a third time.

            Peter couldn’t let his grades slip, because being a superhero was not a valid career choice.

            Anytime he was hurt, no matter how badly, whether or not he thought he could deal with it himself, or even if it healed by the time he got home, he needed to tell Aunt May as soon as possible.

            Even though Yaamon wouldn’t be able to come with him when he went out as Spider-Man, Peter needed to have his Digivice and communicator on him at all times, just in case of emergency.

            If Spider-Man began to drag Peter too far away from normal life, Aunt May would confiscate the suit and only return it at her discretion.

            The last rule was similar to one Aunt May and Uncle Ben made when they first learned about Yaamon. Aunt May was worried that the journals Peter filled with knowledge of another world were dragging him a bit too far from this one, especially considering he had no friends close by once Mimi left. Then, he started to tell them about his friends all around the world. Once they started getting packages at their home (several Chosen Children were incredibly ecstatic that they could mail things directly to Peter’s home) from places as far as Russia that were personalized gifts, they stopped worrying as much.

            Aside from Aunt May’s rules, Peter followed a few rules of his own. The costume (which he made all by himself) included everything a real superhero like him needed. It had his logo of a black spider, one he and Yaamon spent a long time arguing over until Aunt May just said, “Spider, Peter. You stick to walls.” His mask covered his entire face, and he made sure the edges slipped under the neck of the hoodie he wore so it wouldn’t fall off easily. Not that it mattered, seeing as the fabric liked to stick to his face. Once he realized that he was now much more sensitive to everything, light included, Peter made some makeshift goggles out of broken camera lenses he found at the local pawn store.

            Somehow, it only took a month for another American Digidestined to ask Peter if the new vigilante spotted around Queens was him or not. Peter, on principal, shot a message back saying that he was a superhero, not a vigilante, and then very quickly realized he could not keep a secret to save his life. After begging over a hundred and fifty kids from around the world through a game of telephone to not tell the world that he was now a superhero, he had to field questions about his powers (spider-powers, duh), what being a superhero was like (so far, exactly like helping out Digimon in the Digital World with their various problems, except he was helping out people and no one knew who he really was), whether he had met any Avengers (no, despite living in the same city), and why he wore such a lame costume (Peter suspected Mimi put them up to this, as it was an organized attack on color scheme, fabric choice, and fit).

            For the next month, Peter saw a solid mix of encouraging words, debates on which Avenger he would beat in a fight (Peter didn’t know and didn’t want to know) and the occasional joking dig at him. When some kid’s cellphone footage of him got uploaded online, the general consensus seemed to be that the synthetic webs were totally cool, the spider theme might not be so bad, and oh my God, was he okay? (That last one was, once again, mostly Mimi).

 

            It was a relatively peaceful night when Peter was neither Spider-Man-ing nor performing Chosen Child duties when the absolute worst happened; the emergency signal went off. Something was happening in the Digital World, and Izzy wanted everyone to stay alert. More importantly, he wanted everyone who could get through at the moment to do so in order to check out what might be going on.

            Peter shot his Aunt a glance. She returned with a solemn nod, and, after grabbing hold of Yaamon, ran off to his laptop like someone lit a fire under him. Immediately after passing through the Gate, Peter pulled out his communicator in order to get further instructions beyond ‘check things out’.

            “Yo, Petey?” Impmon asked, tugging at Peter’s jacket sleeve.

            Wait, jacket?

            Peter took a second to look down at his clothes. Instead of the loungewear he had been wearing only a moment ago, the t-shirt and shorts, he was now wearing a jacket that was eerily similar to the one he used in his Spider-Man costume, except instead of a red hoodie with the sleeves cut off and blue shirt underneath to make the color scheme, it was just one item. His jeans were deep red, and he was now wearing brand-new converse sneakers. 

            “This is weird,” Peter muttered to himself, picking at one of the strings on the hoodie.

             “I think we should be more worried about where the heck we are!” Impmon yelled, once again pulling on Peter’s sleeve to get his attention.

            Finally, Peter looked up, then around. None of it looked familiar. They definitely hadn’t been here before and for good reason. Peter knew exactly where they ended up, and it wasn’t a really fun place.

            “How did we end up on Infinity Mountain of all places?” Peter whined before starting to send an S.O.S out to anyone who might be in the Digital World. He still needed to do his job, but there was no way he was going to climb down this mountain on foot. “I didn’t even know there was a Gate here.” Rather than listen to him complain like a nice partner, Impmon wandered off into the interior of the nearby cave. Peter threw his head back and groaned, stomping after him in order to keep the rookie out of trouble.

            When Peter entered the dimly light cave, he found Impmon standing and staring at a mark carved out of the wall. The mark was a series of geometric shapes, circles, half-circles, and triangles, overlapping each other to form a mark Peter’s never seen before in any of the ruins Izzy’s dragged him to over the years. Just like Impmon, he was mesmerized by it. All he needed to do was reach out, touch it, grab it…

            Before he knew what he was doing, his fingers brushed against the wall of the cave, and for a third time in his life, that bright, blinding light struck, only this time it was the most intense he’d ever experienced. It took several minutes of blinking to get the dots to disappear from his eyes, but when they did, a small, deep navy-blue color object that would fit perfectly within the slot in his Tag was in his hand, bearing the same symbol as the wall.

            Peter found his Crest.

           

            Prophecies are fickle things. Prophecies in languages from another world are worse. Prophecies in languages from another world where over half of said prophecy has been turned to rubble or weathered beyond readability are nearly impossible to interpret.

            So, when Peter found his Crest and the ruins from two years prior were pushed to the forefront of his mind once again, he was mildly surprised that Izzy was able to glean anything at all. Large chunks, important chunks, were missing, despite his numerous attempts at reconstructing the broken and missing symbols over the years, but at least they had something.  Out of context phrases like ‘Hazard the Fallen One’ and ‘To cull the Rotten Roots’ were the only ones that made sense, even as nonsensical as they sounded.

            After a conference call with some of the more experienced Digidestined, several of whom Peter had never met before, it became clear that no one could make heads or tails of what they did have. Whatever would happen next, they would have no real forewarning.

            “Try not to dwell on it,” Mimi told him before she hung up. “Things will work out in the end.”

            The world’s Digidestined were not removed from high alert. Everyone was told to stay on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. Peter, who had been using any extra hours he had in his busy schedule to go out as Spider-Man during the late evening when more criminals were active, switched that time to checks on the Digital World. If anything were to start, it would be there. One night, due to the strange weather patterns and time cycles, he forgot to come back until nearly two in the morning on a school night. Aunt May was, understandably, very angry with him. Ned was, wonderfully, very understanding when Peter told him he stayed up too late to talk to a penpal and watched his back while he slept at lunch.

            Four times, false alarms were sounded by overeager Digidestined in other countries, and four times Peter prepared ways to tell his Aunt he was going to have to leave right away, and probably wouldn’t be back for a while before this new fight was over. Each time it checked out as false, Peter was more relieved than annoyed, but would never call anyone out for crying wolf. He’d rather have a million false alarms than miss the real deal.

            As Peter dealt with this privately, everyone dealt with the news of what happened with Sokovia publicly, and many chose to blame the Avengers. Peter, having missed all of the news coverage again due to a Digital crisis, kept his mouth shut until he could read some articles or something, but it seemed like everyone, neighbors, teachers, and classmates, even some of the Digidestined, wanted to talk about it.

            Some people said that it would be way worse if the Avengers hadn’t gotten there in time, like world-ending stuff. Some people, mostly those who lived closer to Sokovia, said that it was probably their fault in the first place, that this was far too much power for one group of people, and they should be disbanded. When the Digidestined who called for the Avengers to quit called superheroes menaces, they made sure to tell Peter he was ‘not like them’. He didn’t know whether that was supposed to be a good thing or not.

            So, considering the massive stress from an impending attack that he had no clue of knowing when or where it would come from, and the constant debate all of his conversations turned to, Peter should’ve been forgiven for not recognizing the man sitting on the couch with his Aunt May that afternoon.

            He only noticed him when Yaamon didn’t relax the second he shut the front door. Peter looked around and saw the stranger and Aunt May looking at him. “Oh my God, are you on a date?” He said, choosing to ignore the new man completely. “Should I go? I should go.” He pointed to his room, hoping to be able to make a hasty exit.

            “No, Peter, no,” Aunt May assured him, smiling awkwardly. “This is Tony Stark,” Peter’s mouth quickly formed and ‘O’ shape as his eyes widened into saucers. “And he’s here to talk to you about an internship.”

            “But I-“ Peter began, but was quickly cut off by Tony.

            “Hows about we talk in your room, kiddo? I’ve already told your aunt all about it, don’t worry,” The man said, grabbing Peter by his bicep and dragging him into his room. Peter could feel Yaamon shake slightly in anger, a movement that could be put off as Peter’s arm moving due to the treatment, but he still discretely pat the Digimon to let him know he needed to stop.

            Tony closed the door behind them. Peter continued with what he tried to say in the living room. “Mr. Stark, I didn’t apply for any internship.”

            Tony looked Peter up and down, his eyes catching on Yaamon for a split second, then continued to roam around the room. “Go ahead and sit down, kid.” Peter slowly sat down on the edge of his bed, unsure of what exactly was happening. “Did you bring that thing to school with you?”

            Peter, a little confused about the change in topic but silently assuring himself it was some weird get-to-know-you thing, nodded. “Always do.”

            “Weird hobby. Kind of creepy looking, isn’t it?” Tony said. Peter once again felt Yaamon bristle in his hands at the insult. Peter closed his eyes for a second, knowing only one thing would really keep him calm for the rest of this, but it would also destroy his reputation with his scientific idol forever.

            “I think he’s cool.”

            Tony raised an eyebrow. Whether it was at the personification of the ‘stuffed animal’ from a fourteen-year-old, nearly fifteen-year-old, boy, or at him calling Yaamon ‘cool’, Peter really couldn’t tell. He continued roaming the room. Finally, he made it to Peter’s closet, and not so subtly opened the door before poking at the ceiling with an empty hanger.

            “Didn’t mean to offend,” Tony said, eyes flicking from ceiling to Peter. “Though, it is the kind of cute-creepy, kind of like a… spider.” A little sullen at not finding anything at the top of the closet, Tony gave up and continued to search the room visually. Peter hummed in understanding, finally connecting the dots.

            “Are you looking for my suit?” He asked, not all that upset that Tony Stark had found out his secret. After all, if over a hundred kids across six continents could keep it tightly under wraps, surely a man with the world’s greatest tech arsenal who was bound to find out someday could too.

            Tony, however, looked both incredibly pleased with himself and overly interested. “Your suit?”

            “I didn’t sign up for any internship, and now you’re very obviously snooping around my room while attempting small talk,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. “You know I’m Spider-Man, somehow. If you’re looking for my suit, my Aunt took it to wash it.”

            “Your… aunt,” Tony repeated. “Your aunt… knows?”

            “Duh.”

            “Your aunt allows you to be a vigilante crime fighter at the age of fourteen.”

            “We have rules and stuff. For safety,” Peter said. “Since you came up with the internship thing to try and catch me, do you need something? If so, you’ll have to run it by May.”

            Tony pressed his fingers into his temples. “I think I need a drink.”

           

            Since missing school wasn’t technically against The Rules, Peter was allowed to go to Germany to fight the rogue Avengers, so long as he got all of his homework done while he was away. That meant that, along with himself, his normal luggage, and his suit, Peter would be bringing his school bag. Peter also threw the laptop he used as a Digital Gate in just in case anything happened while he was away.

            While on the plane to Germany, he let Yaamon sit on his lap while he replied to messages. At one point, Happy looked over at him and frowned.

            “What’s got you so quiet?” He asked. Peter knew why he was suspicious. On the way from his apartment to the airport, he practically hadn’t shut up, narrating the entire thing quietly to himself. Happy had been very surprised he wasn’t recording anything, but Peter contemplated using the excuse anyway to avoid having the man think he was talking to his stuffed animal. Then again, he’d been explicitly told that he can’t tell anyone about any of this. Which was exactly why he would only be telling everyone in the Chosen Children chatrooms.

            Peter pretended to press a random button very purposefully on the communicator, then waved it around. “Game.” He then pretended to press the same button and went back to messaging his friends. Happy never bothered to check, which would probably come back to bite him later.

            At the hotel, a case with a new suit sat on Peter’s bed. He looked down at it and frowned. The problem with the new suit was that it lacked pockets. No pockets meant he couldn’t carry his Digidestined gear, and therefore he couldn’t wear it. Peter repackaged the suit and put his old one on. When Happy came to get him, the man thought he simply hadn’t seen the suit on the bed rather than made a conscious decision not to wear it and wouldn’t let Peter leave without changing. Thus, Peter had a difficult decision to make. Luckily, he didn’t have to make it alone.

            “Yaamon,” Peter said very quickly. “I’m already here and these people need my help, but if something happens in the Digital World and I don’t know about it…”

            Yaamon tilted his entire body in a similar way a dog would tilt its head. “Every other Digidestined on Earth is around to help, y’know? Your scrawny butt can barely build a Yokomon house, let alone save the Digital World. It’s not like they’d need you there anyway.”

            Peter snorted, halfway in amusement at Yaamon’s attempt at a pep-talk, halfway in irritation for the same reason. “Like you did any better.”

           

            The highlights of the battle at the airport were stealing Captain America’s shield (Peter cackled like he just successfully pulled off a prank with Yaamon), seeing the world’s coolest prosthetic arm (it didn’t really matter that it was trying to punch him), and taking down some guy that was the size of WarGreymon (thankfully, he packed a lot less punch).

            The low points of the battle at the airport were definitely being dragged out of a window by the Falcon’s mini-drone, wiping out before the battle was even over, and seeing friendships crumble before his eyes.

             More than a few times during the fight, Peter had the distinct feeling that he shouldn’t have accepted the offer. He’d seen fights like this before, although those had a lot less actual fighting and superpowers and a lot more of yelling and a little bit of crying. Maybe he hadn’t exactly seen a fight like this before, but stuff came close. This issue went much deeper than rogue Avengers needing to be stopped before they do something completely irreversible. Everyone else had some personal stake in it (except for that ant guy, he, like Peter, was just kind of there). It made him a little uncomfortable.

            Worse than that, Peter felt that if any of these people truly wanted to take him out of commission, they would. They were well trained as opposed to his strategy of web-and-run, and they even had a few superpowered people on their side that could match him blow for blow. In a real fight against them, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Every attempt to remove him from the fight was just that. They didn’t want him dragged into whatever mess this was, for whatever reason.

            Neither feeling felt when he returned to the hotel, relieved to find that nothing important happened while he was gone. They didn’t leave when he abused the fact that Tony Stark paid for his hotel room and told him to order whatever he wanted, then bought a hearty dinner from room service to split with Yaamon. They also didn’t leave when he left for home.

            On the plane, Peter immediately pulled out his communicator. There was a point partway through the flight where he considered bringing out his Digivice when they passed where he knew a few of his friends lived, both to check if tracking worked this far up and for something to do other than answer questions about what the Avengers were like up close. When they landed, Peter was too engrossed in trying to find the right way to get several of the slightly older girls to stop asking him questions he really didn’t feel like answering to notice Tony was already sitting in the car Happy lead him to.

            “Are you texting someone?”

            “Holy snuzzballs!” Peter jumped several inches at the unexpected voice. He looked through the open car door and saw Tony sitting in the backseat, waiting for him to get in with a now incredibly amused expression on his face. Peter carefully closed his communicator and climbed in, sitting Yaamon carefully back on his lap. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you.”

            Tony was not deterred by the absence of the device. “Mhm. Who were you talking to that demands all of your brain power?”

            “What?” Peter asked, hoping his nervousness came across as confusion. “Oh, no, Mr. Stark. That thing is just, uh, part of this game I play.”

            It didn’t seem to be the turn in the conversation Tony expected, which meant it was to Peter’s advantage. If he made it believable enough, Tony wouldn’t look too deeply into it. “That ancient looking thing is a game.”

            “Well, yeah, it’s a bit old,” Peter huffed. “But that’s because they sort of… don’t make it anymore.” Be vague Peter, don’t give too many details. Remember what you told Ned. “It wasn’t really popular in the first place, since it has multiple parts you have to carry around all the time and stuff. People just didn’t like the hassle.”

             That seemed to satisfy Tony, at least for the moment. For the rest of the ride home, Peter continued to sit in silence and tried to hide the increasingly uncomfortable feeling of invading into someone else’s problems. It almost came to a head when Tony left the case with the suit with him.

            Once he’d made it to his room and dumped all of his stuff onto his bed, only after confirming with Aunt May that he completed his homework during the trip, Peter set the case upright in his closet and scowled at it. Yaamon, who was now freed of having to sit still for long periods of time, jumped around the room and on furniture with no cares in the world, seemingly oblivious to Peter’s plight until he jumped in front of the young teen and saw his serious face.

            “Whats’a matter?” He asked.

            Peter huffed. “It’s stupid.”

            Yaamon stopped his hopping momentarily in order to look at his partner. “You’re not stupid, and you’re thinkin’ it, so tell me.”

            “It’s just…” The teen’s voice trailed off momentarily before he spoke again, this time quieter. “I really like the suit, but there’s no pockets. I can’t carry around my stuff without them.”

            The Digimon paused to think before he gave his version of a shrug. “Just add ‘em.”

            “Wow, why didn’t I think of sewing pockets onto a suit that costs, like, a bajillion dollars?” Peter’s face softened as he walked back to his bedroom door. “Can I trade you peanut butter and celery sticks for the safety of my belongings, Sir Bounce-a-Lot?”

            Yaamon paused mid-jump, bouncing several times on the hardwood floor before he finally came to rest. He stared at Peter with a glint of hunger in his eyes. “I accept your surrender.”

            The two ran to the kitchen laughing, having forgotten all their worries for just a moment.

Notes:

Digimon Mentioned-
WarGreymon - A dragon Digimon, clad yellow and silver armor made of Chrome Digizoid. His claws are labelled the Dramon Destroyers, and on his back sits the Brave Shield. He stands as tall as a medium-sized building, and has enough strength to blow one away.

 

Places
Infinity Mountain - The center of File Island, the tallest point on the island, and the lair previous of File's Devimon. Although Infinity Mountain no longer harbors such a ruthless Digimon within its caverns, it is still avoided for the treacherous terrain and even worse memories.

Chapter 7

Notes:

This chapter has a description of someone being calmed down from a panic attack.

            Peter didn’t help out with the whole Germany fiasco to get a reward. And, despite what Tony or his Aunt May said, he didn’t exactly know if the official title of ‘Junior Avenger’ counted as a reward. The arrangement Tony worked out to add a minor onto the roster and keep his identity secret under the amended Sokovian Accords added more work to Peter’s already busy schedule. But only Aunt May knew just how busy he already was, and since she firmly believed that Peter needed to be mentored by “real adults with verifiable experience” in this world-saving business before attempting anything further (on either fronts of his life), he was sort of stuck.

            This was how, instead of visiting the Digital World after tending to the neighborhood greenhouse on Friday afternoon, Peter sat off to the side in Tony’s lab, awkwardly waiting for the man to finish checking over his suit during the first of many weekends he’d be spending ‘interning’ with Tony Stark.

            The visit was originally supposed to be an introduction to the compound where he would be spending his weekends training, disguised as an internship to anyone curious or named Ned. It quickly turned into a diagnostic for his equipment, prompted by the fact that Tony had noticed some weird data reported through the GPS tracker located in his suit (which prompted Peter to ask what else the man had put in the suit without his knowledge, but that question was promptly ignored). It took less than a minute for the truth and Peter’s makeshift alterations came to light.

            “Did you sew that on?” Tony asked incredulously, pointing to the addon of a zip-up pocket that Peter was quite proud of. The tone his superhero mentor took made him rethink the decision.

            “It needed a pocket, Mr. Stark! With the whole rehashing the Sokovian Accords thing,” Peter didn’t notice the uncomfortable look that came and went on Tony’s face when he casually mentioned the long political fight that took place over the last two months. “I figured you’d be too busy for such a small problem and took the initiative.” His stomach turned and his face turned a shade paler. “I didn’t… break anything, did I? I swear it worked fine on patrols.”

            “I built it to withstand a lot more than a sewing needle,” Tony said. “But if you could refrain from anymore DIY alterations with the suit, that’d be swell.” The man narrowed his eyes slightly, realizing something for the first time.  “I assume you can also explain why the GPS in the suit ‘malfunctioned’ and reports like it didn’t move from your apartment for three weeks straight?”

            Peter bit his lower lip. “Sort of…?”

            The following two-hour conversation solidified the dynamic between the two. Tony, who had previously thought of Peter as a teenaged vigilante who was slightly odd made the conscious decision to simply go with it, whatever it would pop up. Eccentricities, quirks, and weird hobbies aside, Peter was a good kid who wanted to do good things. Even if he was a little (a lot) stupid sometimes. Peter, who somehow talked around the real reason why he couldn’t go out in a suit without pockets for two hours, was equally mortified and ecstatic. Mortified that a man that he’d looked up to since he was small, that he’d read about in articles, that he wanted to be one day (in more ways than one, now) saw him awkwardly explain why he’d been unable to use a suit that he loved.

            Because it didn’t have pockets.

            Ecstatic that a man he’d looked up to since he was small, that he’d read about in articles, that he wanted to be one day saw him awkwardly explain why he’d been unable to use a suit that he loved.

            For two hours.

           

            The second time Peter visited the Avengers compound for his ‘internship’, he was meant to stay longer than the time it took to take a tour of the building. His entire extended weekend, four days originally intended to be split between working in the neighborhood greenhouse, hanging out with Ned, and being conned into babysitting for Elecmon while Mimi had her monthly tea with the Digimon was now set to be spent doing whatever it was Avengers-in-training did. With the awkward weight of his dufflebag forcing him to lean a little to the left while he walked, the cool-yet-warm feeling of his (still inactive) Crest hidden beneath his shirt, and a tight grip on Yaamon, Peter nervously followed the minimal directions that supposedly led him to the room he’d be sleeping in whenever he was here.

            The door slid shut behind him with a satisfying click. Yaamon jumped out of his hands and onto the bed where Peter placed his bag. He shifted all of the items around and pulled out an old laptop and a mass of different wires, kept from tangling by well-placed zip-ties, from the bottom. Any attempt to properly set it up stopped when FRIDAY spoke to him.

            “Boss didn’t say you were bringing a pet.” The blood drained from his face. Peter looked up at the ceiling while Yaamon glanced around, looking for the person who the voice belonged to. Thirty minutes. They’d been there thirty minutes. He really was the world’s worst secret keeper. “For some reason, my scans are unable to identify its species.”

            Peter swallowed his rising anxiety. FRIDAY was an AI, a Digital Being. Sure, she wasn’t a Digimon per se, but he knew from both the time Ned tried to code a basic AI and the experiences of Digidestined who took a few advanced coding classes (for, you know, reasons) that AI sometimes just decided to become a little more sentient when anything Digimon related became involved. Usually, the process took weeks or months of exposure, not seconds, but this situation could get hairy quickly and FRIDAY was already pretty complex.

            In short, the world presented a very thin life-line, and Peter held on for dear life. “FRIDAY, can you keep a secret?”

            The silence that followed his question terrified Peter. The answer only slightly relieved him of his fear.

            “If no one asks, or if no one is in direct danger, then I won’t share what you tell me with the others.”

            Peter turned back to Yaamon, then nodded. Yaamon rolled his eyes, obviously still peeved about being called a pet by the lady speaking through the ceiling. “My name is Yaamon. I’m a Digimon, and Petey here is my partner.” The furball puffed his cheeks out with the same pride he always did when he said the word partner. “And we’re gonna give ya a crash course on the Digital World.”

             

            At first, staying at the compound on his off days wasn’t the worst thing in the world. If he had ever gone to a boot-camp in order to have the experience to compare it to, then he’d probably say it was something like that. Get up, eat, train, eat, train, have some downtime, eat, sleep. What the ‘training’ consisted of shifted from session to session, depending, Peter guessed, on who wanted to be saddled with a fourteen-year-old they didn’t know for a couple of hours. He wasn’t too offended, considering the fact that they were teaching him at all.

            Having no real formal training, Peter’s primary teachers, the ones who kept showing up the most (which, apparently, were going to consist of Black Widow and Captain America) were trying to see how up to snuff he was in the basics by way of tests of his powers in general, his marksmanship with his webs, and some sparring.

            The answer; not at all up to snuff.

            Dodging, on the other hand, was his specialty. From way back in his days as a message runner, village re-builder, and all-around thorn in the side of the (now ex-)Digimon Emperor, both Peter and Impmon knew how to dodge the trickiest of blows. Even rookies knew how to pack a nasty punch, especially for humans, and one knock-out by a Digimon wearing a Dark Ring meant the worst fate for his partner. It was a skill Peter was proud of.

            But here, on the training floor, he could see the hidden disappointment. Spider-Man: sloppy punches but can run away great.

            Beyond the training room, there seemed to be a general discomfort whenever more than one Avenger gathered. Peter knew this sort of awkward dance from his Digidestined days as well. After Ken was knocked back into his senses and joined the other Chosen Children in helping rather than hurting the Digimon, it took a while for him to stop feeling guilty. It seemed similar enough, but the awkwardness surrounding the Avengers whenever they were too idle seemed just different enough that Peter felt he was missing too many pieces of the puzzle to know what exactly was going on.

            He really should’ve paid more attention to the briefing on the way to Germany.

            Peter also noticed something he had chalked up to a mix of nerves and excitement while in Germany. He was, for some unknown reason, terrified of Vision. Something about the hero caused an instinct to rise to the surface in both Peter and Yaamon. Whenever he was near Peter something told him how dangerous it was to be in the vicinity. His stomach dropped, Yaamon’s fur rose, and the two left as soon as humanly possible.

            The sighing whenever he attempted to throw a proper punch and once again got the form wrong again, Peter could deal with. He never expected to actually hit anyone, even as Spider-Man, he was made to be fast and wily in order to web them up. The weird atmosphere that he didn’t have any context for, Peter could ignore. It wasn’t any of his business, really, and it was probably something they had to work out themselves. If he was meant to know, he already would. Avoiding Vision and whatever terrifyingly destructive power the seemingly nice man hid wasn’t easy, but it was doable. That didn’t mean he had to like any of it.  

            So, Peter avoided the common areas and kitchens during the times he knew the others would use them, ate in his room with Yaamon (electing to continue sharing stories about the Digital World with FRIDAY instead, despite the risks), and split his free time between being alone, and hanging out with the only other person he knew for a fact enjoyed talking to him.

            “I don’t think anyone likes me,” Peter complained half-heartedly as he replied to messages on his communicator.

            “I’m sure your Aunt likes you.”

            Peter looked up long enough to glare. “You know what I mean.”

            Tony slowed down in his work, having to split his concentration. “From what I’ve been told,” He began slowly, considering his words carefully. “You generally have to talk to someone in order for them to genuinely like you.”

            “I know how to make friends, Mr. Stark.”

            The older man smirked. “That you do. I’ve never met anyone who talks to FRIDAY more than I do. But,” He whirled around to face the teen. “You can’t be part of a team if you don’t communicate. Trust needs to happen.”

            “Then why are you always down here alone?”

            Tony’s face faltered. Peter erroneously took this as a win and grinned cheekily at the man staring at him. After a long moment of silence, he shook his head clear, coughed, and avoided the subject in a not-so-subtle way.

            “I programmed the espresso machine down here to pour the foam to look like my Iron-Man helmet. Wanna see if we can get it to look like your doll?”

            Neither of them slept much that night, although it was for entirely different reasons.

 

             Nothing was there, and there was nothing. A mass of everything that somehow resulted in nothing being there at all. Static so clustered that it just became white, white, white noise. Too white, too loose, too quiet in the vastness of it all. No ground, no reference for what is down, what is up, what is feeling.

            Was there even air to breathe? Did it matter?

            Then, a solitary figure emerged in the vastness. They took a step, and there was the ground, the down, the solid in the empty. It rippled with the weight of their steps, yet still they seemed to have none. Effortless. Graceful. The word popped into a mind that suddenly remembered it existed in all the vastness. It looked down with eyes that it knew it had been using to see, yet not to comprehend, and saw its own feet rippling through the ground in a manner all too similar and yet far different from its counterpart. They wore converse sneakers, an odd choice for such a strange place.

            The two solitary figures stood opposite each other in a sea of everything and nothing at all.

            “Where is this place?” Said the awkward one, struggling between the feeling of floating in air and standing on the ground.

            The graceful one smiled an awful, terrible sort of grin and said nothing at all. Instead, it pointed directly behind its companion. Turning through the white everything felt like swimming underneath thick mud. Beyond the nothing, there was a something. A recognizable something, being edged away by the nothing, merged into the everything, becoming one with the static.

            With the image of the Server Continent’s desert being dragged into the unknown white abyss of his dream burned into his eyes, Peter shot up in his bed, wide awake.

           At the sight of the white ceiling staring back at him, Peter sucked in a shaky, nearly horrified breath. He was almost glad that for the moment the ringing in his ears (why were they ringing?) kept him from hearing his own distress. FRIDAY said something that he just barely caught through the hushed murmurs and vibrations that hit his slightly pounding head. Although his breaths were beginning to calm, his heartbeat was still wild. Rather than try to listen to the AI that was certainly trying to discern what was wrong or wake up his partner who would be incessantly worried in his own way, Peter glanced over to his bedside table, where his Digidestined gear sat.

           At this time of night, contacting one of the older, more experienced kids wouldn’t be hard. While here it was early in the morning hours, they were starting their afternoon classes on their side of the world. Like Peter, all of them were too wrapped up in their classes at any particular time to miss an important message and all of them had set excuses to leave when needed. The only thing stopping him was the idea that the alarm hadn’t already sounded.

           Izzy was the one who sounded the alarm, who sent everyone into emergency mode. Izzy had programs, monitoring systems, contingency plans in place for when things went wrong. If something was happening, he would know. Everyone would know. It wouldn’t come to Peter in some dream. A nightmare.

            But what if what was all happening outside of Izzy’s parameters? If all of the carefully constructed monitor systems, built by the older teen with the supervision of Gennai himself couldn’t identify this new threat. If those false alarms weren’t so false after all, just blips of something bigger, edging closer, closer, closer to breaking through to the real world.

           Biting his lip to keep the nausea that came from nowhere at bay, Peter’s mind raced in a dozen different directions. The rational mind tried to keep him in a solid direction, both weighing the facts of ‘Four false alarms in a row’, ‘not every security system is perfect’, and ‘Get it together, it was a dream’ as well as making a plan on how to best contact the rest of the Chosen Children with his suspicions, or even if he should. The rest of Peter’s mind, a far larger part at this point, was preoccupied with pure panic at what it could entail.

           (The destruction of both worlds, if they couldn’t stop what was happening.)

           A shadow appeared in the corner of his eye and Peter jumped backward, hitting his head against the wall. For a moment, he was eleven and a half again, taking a break in the middle of some dark forest on the Server Continent that was on the edge of territory controlled by the Digimon Emperor.

           Then the shadow spoke, and it was very distinctly a human that Peter, age eleven and a half, did not know, and the strange spell broke. “FRIDAY, can you turn on the lights? Dim, please,” Tony said.

           The shadow, as it turned out, had been two people standing in an awkward formation in his doorway. Tony stood fully inside, with Steve, looking like he rushed from halfway across the compound, standing half-in, half-out with a strangely pained expression on his face as he looked down at Peter sitting on the bed.

           “Peter, can you hear me?” Tony asked, his voice smooth and calm in a way Peter hadn’t heard before. “You’re in the Avenger’s compound. You’re sitting in your room, sitting your bed. It’s,” He paused, then glanced away and back. “2:34 A.M.”

           Fully expecting a ‘Jesus, kid,’, but not receiving one, Peter furrowed his brows. Tony took this the completely wrong way, bit his lip in concern, then did the unimaginable. He turned and asked Steve Rogers, Captain America, to enter the room and help.

“Peter?” Steve asked, sliding past Tony with a foot-wide berth. “Eyes on me, kid. I’m going to need you to breathe in time with my count.”

            “That’s for when someone has a panic attack,” Peter muttered, and the reaction seemed to allow Tony’s shoulders to relax a minute amount. “Aside from all of you being in my room at nearly three in the morning, I’m fine.”

            “Your vitals say otherwise,” Tony said. Even his usual hint of better-than-you sort of smugness that always tinged his voice had left and been replaced with a sprinkle of worry. “FRIDAY alerts for those kinds of things. You set her off. Up to explaining what’s still keeping your heart-rate up?”

           “Just some dream.”

           “Peter is under the impression that his dream has given a glimpse into the cause of an end of times level event, which, if allowed to occur, would destroy at least two parallel worlds, including ours,” FRIDAY said, all the while Peter glared at the ceiling. “You mutter when you think too much, Peter.”

Notes:

People
Gennai - A guide of sorts for the Digidestined. While his outer form may change, he is still the same person on the inside. In addition, there can be multiple versions of him across the Digital plain at once, allowing him to offer guidance to multiple Digidestined at once.

Chapter 8

Notes:

I've got one final left but I'm sneaking away from working on my project to post this.

The Nightmare Incident, as the morning version of Peter decided to refer to that all-around dreadful night, marked the beginning of the end in more ways than one. 

FRIDAY’s outburst the night before about the dream that had forced Peter into such a panic didn’t bring on a slew of questions like he’d expected. Oddly enough, whenever Peter thought back to the look on Tony’s face, the man looked like he knew what was going on with the teen. Something that Peter once would’ve considered improbable, if not impossible, but considering how easily FRIDAY blabbed on him despite promises to the contrary, he’d have to give the AI a stern talking to in order to find out if his mentor does know. He kept the questions and talk to normal subjects and far from Peter’s surreal, apocalyptic dream, and made sure to cut off any talk from Steve that seemed like it was going in that direction. Once Peter’s vitals were as calm as his outward appearance, both men left so that all three could get some well-needed sleep.

Not that Peter actually got any. The rest of the night he spent lying in bed, staring up into the darkness where the ceiling supposedly was, contemplating the hand life gave him and what cards he was supposed to be playing. Right about now, it felt like someone just tossed down a royal flush and took the whole pot while Peter still thought they were playing Uno.

He ignored every alarm that told him to wake up and get up, considering he was already very much awake and he felt like getting out of bed sometime next year. He fully ignored FRIDAY’s attempts to cajole him out of bed with descriptions of what was being made for breakfast, instead of turning over and reaching under the bed to grab at the ever-dwindling supply of hidden snack foods he left for Yaamon during training sessions. 

The second he flipped back on to his back, incredibly unhealthy bags of food in hand, he was met with worried green eyes staring at him, softened enough from their ever-present glare that anyone would be able to tell a difference. In an attempt to avoid the inevitable for as long as possible, Peter opened one of the bags and offered it to his partner.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Digimon refuse food,” He said, trying for a lighthearted tone. It was ruined by the fact that there were bags under his eyes from a night without sleep and an obvious strain to his voice. “When did you wake up?”

“Bit past when you did,” Yaamon answered. “Kept my eyes shut when those guys came in. Then you had a funny look. Aunt May used to tell me to give y’some time when y’get all up in your head.” He scooted forward on the bed, pushing the bag of food out of the way as his frown deepened. “You’ve had enough time, right?”

After all this time, his partner still managed to shock him sometimes. He blinked his thoughts away and tried to stay focused on the now. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve had enough time. I already sent a message to Izzy about last night. Maybe I should send one to Mimi, she tends to get back faster. I just- I need to talk to somebody, even if it’s nothing. I should probably just ask to head home so we can talk to everyone, tell May about it. This might be a bit bigger than having Black Widow tell me how bad I am at throwing a punch. I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t a normal dream.” He stared down at his hands for a long moment and was only brought out of his thoughts by a soft tap against his side. Flicking his eyes over to Yaamon, he saw the Digimon pulling back from an incredibly soft headbutt. He returned the gesture by ruffling the fur on top of his head and turned to the ceiling with a small grimace. “FRIDAY, where’s Mr. Stark right now?”

“The Boss is currently in the hangar. He and several other members of the team are waiting for you to arrive,” FRIDAY responded in a slightly ruffled tone.

Straightening himself into a sitting position and nearly rolling Yaamon off of the bed, Peter racked his brain for why anyone would be waiting for him the hangar, let alone several members of the Avengers. Not willing to let his imagination run wild, he decided to ask the all-knowing AI attached to both the building and Tony’s personal schedule.

“They are waiting for you to arrive in order to begin a team exercise. The exercise was meant to begin immediately after breakfast, which most of the compound’s occupants attended,” FRIDAY said. “In fact, the alarms I set for you this morning were for just that purpose.”

Peter was so incredibly indignant at the nonchalant way that she told him he was late to a team exercise that he had no recollection of being told about (at least, not until he was halfway through pulling on his suit and he remembered it being yelled at him a few times as he ran out of training), that he nearly forgot he still wanted to have a talk with her about how friends don’t blab secrets about each other to people not in the know. Although the utter and complete panic from last night had subsided, it wasn’t far enough from his mind for him not to take time to put his Crest on underneath his suit, shove his Digidestined gear in his self-made pockets, and scoop Yaamon up on his way out of the room.

By the time Peter made it to the hangar, he was too out of breath to apologize to any of the half-dozen or so people waiting next to the quinjet, some he hadn’t met before. As he slid to a stop in front of the menagerie, FRIDAY took over the introduction for him and announced that he was ‘finally here’. Peter held back the glare he desperately wanted to throw the AI if only for the fact that he could feel the stares of several pairs of eyes flick down to where Yaamon sat in his arms. Curling inward to protect his partner against the stares felt much more comfortable, much safer, than being defiant towards the digital entity in the ceiling right now.

A sharp clap cut into the short silence. “Alright!” Tony shouted, making himself the center of attention. He waved his arms towards the open hold of the quinjet. “All aboard!” He stood aside to let everyone pass, and when Peter, who had taken up a position a few feet behind everyone else, was passing by, he held out an arm in front of the teen.

“Short talk, I promise.” He said, making sure to lower his voice. “I know you might need that right now, but you’ll have to leave it on the plane when we land.” For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, the man mistook one of Peter’s looks for something else. “Nothing bad will happen to it, I promise.”

Internally shaking himself loose, Peter looked at the man in front of him and nodded. “I believe you.”

Tony looked like a weight had been lifted. “Good.” He removed his arm from in front of Peter. “Now, go on.”

As he walked up the ramp to find a seat, keeping his eyes downcast to avoid the odd looks in everyone’s eyes, he couldn’t help but wonder if that was part of the knowing look from the night before.

           

“So, it’s like capture the flag?” Peter asked. They were about five minutes from landing. The destination was the middle of a forest entirely owned by Tony, surrounded by land entirely owned by Tony. The land had been purchased at the same time the building for the compound had and due to the sheer size of it (and other factors taking his attention away) it took longer for him to set up proper security at the perimeter. Said security was both for those inside, and for anyone who happened to be wandering around outside the perimeter.

Peter spent most of the short ride there pressed to the wall, as close to the front of the quinjet (and as far from Vision) as possible. The man flying the jet seemed to have a permanent grimace on his face, at least for the moment, but when Peter took a second look it reminded him more of Yaamon and his ever-angry eyes. Unable to get the comparison between the man with the bow on his back (Hawkeye, his mind supplied) and his partner out of his head, Peter tried to distract himself with the other unknown occupant.

Sam Wilson, he found, was far too easy to talk to, considering his current nervous disposition. The man had an air about him that screamed ‘I’m here if you need me!’ The open, honest feeling he got from the man reminded him too much of Mimi, and it shocked him a bit how open he was being after they’d just met (even if it wasn’t anything of importance).

Sam shook his hand back and forth in the universal gesture of so-so. “Not exactly. After splitting up into a couple random teams, one side will get an object to guard and get to a specific point, while the others will have to nab it and neutralize them before they can deliver it.” Sam hummed to himself. “I guess it’s a little like capture the flag.”

“And the teams are completely random?” Peter asked, his eyes flicking over to Vision for less than a second.

Sam smiled. “We’re mostly out here to rebuild unity and all that. Wouldn’t be fair if we were all picking sides.” Although he didn’t say it, the unspoken implication of again was there.

During the lull in conversation, Peter noticed Sam’s eyes flick down towards Yaamon for the umpteenth time in the flight. Peter turned his head away and leaned back, deciding not to pick it back up.

The landing was smooth enough that Peter only registered that it happened through the front window of the quinjet showing a lower altitude and the back ramp opening to free its human cargo. From what he could see, they were in a clearing with easily thirty to fourty feet before hitting the tree line on either side. The forest itself was lush and healthy, the trunks getting wider the deeper they went, and many of them tall enough for him to swing on or jump from. He let everyone go ahead of him and calmly placed Yaamon in his seat, whispering a soft goodbye before heading off. By the time he stepped off the ramp, Tony was already reading off a list of who would team up with who.

“Clint and Wanda, Natasha and Vision, Peter and Sam, and finally,” Tony scowled for a second before the look disappeared. “Me and Steve. Clint and Wanda, you two are on retrieval. Your job is to take the others down and take what they’re carrying. No unnecessary damage. Everyone else,” He looked around at the pairs that had now shuffled around to stand next to each other. “We’ll be carrying these,” He held up a small, cylindrical-shaped item and rotated it around, showing several glowing bands across the surface. “To one of several set locations in the forest. They’re important messages, and you need to see to it that they’re delivered. It’ll transmit GPS data to your gear once you’ve picked it up. Choose your own route, method of travel, etcetera, etcetera. Just get there with both you and it intact and you’ll be good.” He began passing them out. Peter grabbed it with both hands and clutched it close to his chest, wishing for a moment that he had the satchel he used when running messages in the Digital World. “We get a one-minute head start.”

"Pretty sure we agreed on two minutes,” Steve said, the glance he tossed towards Peter not going unnoticed. I’ll be fine, Peter thought, his blood boiling, I’ve been doing this for years.

“Alright. One minute to confer, one for a headstart,” Tony corrected. He set a timer with two different alarms. “Starting… now.”

Sam wrapped an arm around his partner’s shoulders and led him off to the side where they were less likely to be overheard. “You good, kid?”

“I’m fine,” Peter hissed, his hands wanting to flex with his irritation. But they couldn’t, the message was more important. What was in it, he wondered? “Who will we be leaving behind?”

“Excuse me?”

“If we get caught, who will we be leaving behind and who goes ahead?” Peter repeated, clarifying his question. That’s why the Digidestined traveled in pairs when message running, after all. The faster of the two would leave to complete the assignment and come back for their fallen companion. “Oh, it’s a stupid question. You go on ahead, you can fly. I can probably hold them off for a while, but make sure you come back fast enough, alright?”

Sam was silent for a few too many precious seconds. When he spoke, his voice was much harsher than it was on the quinjet. “I’m not going to leave you behind, Peter.”

“I mean, you’d probably last longer if you stayed behind to fight. I’m fast enough that you wouldn’t have to, though.” Peter said. He unzipped his pocket and slipped the cylinder inside.

"No, Peter, I meant-“

A shrill alarm sounded through the clearing, ending all conversation. At the direction of Tony, the pairs were off into the woods on their pseudo-mission, and Clint and Wanda were told that an alarm on the quinjet would alert them when they come after the others.

Peter and Sam were still close enough to the clearing when the second alarm rang that they could hear it. The man’s red wings and high flight were suddenly a hindrance, an alert to their enemies as to where exactly they were in the thick forest. On the apex of one of his short swings, Peter waved to the man to come down. It took a moment for him to register the meaning of the hand gestures Peter gave him, but the second he did, he lowered himself below the treeline to keep out of sight. If the edges of the wings weren’t as sharp as they were, Peter would’ve worried for the machines.

Peter glanced at the GPS location that was now being displayed inside his mask (something which he’d never get used to). Their goal appeared to be a lake, nearly ten miles away. Fortunately, one of the shorter distances Peter had traveled for a delivery, but, unfortunately, they were being chased the entire way. He felt the cylinder jostling inside his pocket with his Digidestined gear as he entered a particularly low swing and adjusted. He hoped that it wouldn’t have to come to him running ahead without Sam, despite the gut feeling he had. The man seemed put off towards the usual messenger tactic.

A high-pitched whistling sound brought Peter back out of his musings. A loud thunk! sounded out on a tree behind him just as he passed it, and a wordless shout came from Sam above. He saw a shadow move around him and felt the air shift behind him as Sam dove sharply to avoid an oncoming branch, missing it by inches as another weeooo, thunk! struck just above and to the right of Peter. This time he caught a glimpse of the arrow shaft as he continued into his next swing, not daring to slow his pace. The third whistle sounded as Peter shifted his swing to the other arm. This time the loud thunk! of the arrow lodging itself into the tree trunk timed itself near perfectly with groan Peter let loose as his back hit the forest floor.

Disoriented and lying on his back, Peter wanted nothing more than to just lie there until someone came and got him. Mimi and Palmon once saved him from a similar predicament, but that involved more climbing trees rather than swinging and was a lot more Peter’s fault than Hawkeye shooting at him with arrows. As he tried to turn over and pick himself up off the ground, the scrapes along his back from the branches he’d hit on the way and the roots his back hit lying down protested vehemently.

The next sound he heard sent a shockwave of self-preservation through him. The clashing of metal on metal was never a good sign, in Peter’s experience. In one corner of his mind, the one unaffected by the hits he just took and not fueled by his current rush of adrenaline, he understood that the sound was most likely Sam’s wings deflecting some of Clint’s arrows (or trying to, the man had trick shots and those things could get stuck up in the inner workings). However, the Digidestined in him knew several Digimon with armor, had seen them all fight and wanted to be nowhere near anything that required those big guns to be pulled out, especially not when he was in the middle of a run and partner-less.

Without a single glance back at his second, Peter hopped to his feet and ran off into the woods, hoping he was still headed somewhat in the right direction. The blood rushing to his ears as he ran, webs entirely forgotten, blocked out any sounds of battle that were behind him. As soon as it was safe, he’d check his course, but he needed to make sure that no matter what, the message would make it.

Deliver message, come back to help.

"You are running?” Someone asked from far too close, making Peter trip over a tree root. He flung his hands out to catch himself, but before he could hit the ground something else caught him. Something red and unnatural curled around him, first at his feet and then the rest of him, something made every instinct scream to get away, run away, this isn’t something you can beat. He tamped it down as best he could and tried not to show it on his face, just like he did when faced with Vision. He was lifted upright and into the air by the red, just a few inches off of the ground, whirled around to face Wanda. “You left Sam to fight alone.”

Seeing that the statement was really a question, and now this woman’s silence was her waiting for an answer, Peter gulped and managed to stutter out, “Messenger t-tactics. One f-fights, a-and one runs.”

“Ah.” She nodded as if in understanding. “So, you are a coward, then?”

Peter curled his lips back in what he thought was an imitation of Yaamon’s most threatening snarl. “Don’t you dare call me that!”

“You are the one who runs,” She said, barely acknowledging the rage of the boy in front of her. “You do not fight with your comrade. You’ve left him to the wolves, so to speak. How are you anything more?” She leaned her head into her hand and looked at him with a more than a touch of disdain and just a hint of curiosity. “I’ve seen the way you look at Vision. You try to hide it, but now you look at me with such a similar fear. I wonder,” She asked, her voice trailing off as she reached forward to press her hand against his forehead. “What could a naïve little boy like you be so afraid of?”

Peter felt a soft touch brush against his head and recoiled, shutting his eyes. He didn’t want anymore of the red to work its way around him. This red felt different. With it came a fog that overtook Peter’s mind until nothing but the ground and the red were present.

 

           

When Peter opened his eyes he was on the ground, face down. He pushed himself up and off the ground, leaning back against his calves as he got his bearings. Looking around at the forest, the greenery around him, he felt like he was truly seeing it for the first time since he’d stepped foot into it. But what he was seeing was entirely impossible. He turned around in as much of a circle as his position would let him, letting his eyes wander around and wondering just when he’d gotten there. Even more importantly, how he’d gotten there. After all, opening a Digiport required a working computer with some kind of internet connection.

This particular forest was one that used to be deep within Digimon Emperor territory. Peter and Impmon spent an extended amount of time traversing the area, finding the routes with the best hiding spots and where the strongest Digimon under the control of the Dark Rings were kept (know thy enemy, and all that). Even now, Peter wouldn’t step foot in the forest without at least Impmon trailing along right behind him at every step, let alone another Digidestined to travel with. There were far too many bad memories.

“Impmon?” Peter called out into the woods. No answer. “Yaamon?” Peter tried, hoping his partner hadn’t De-Digivolved while he was passed out on the ground. When still no answer came, he tugged at his hair and bit his bottom lip to prevent panic from emerging. “Don’t worry, you both know this place. Just have to meet up at the Gate.”

At the sound of scraping metal, Peter whipped his head around to see the bushes rustling. He immediately stood and began to back away from whatever was coming. The Digimon in this area weren't always overly friendly, even after being saved from the control of the Dark Rings and Dark Spirals. “Who’s there?”

A figure Peter was glad to see dressed in clothes he wished he would never see again pushed himself out from the bushes rather violently, muttering under his breath. Ken Ichijouji, dressed once again as the dreaded Digimon Emperor, stood before Peter with a snarl on his lips as he regarded the teen before him.

“K-Ken?” Peter asked, his voice barely audible. “Why are you-“

CRACK.

The whip that Ken- no, that the Digimon Emperor always held at his side suddenly struck the ground next to Peter, the resulting sound deafening him. Involuntarily Peter flinched and took a step backwards. The moment that the snarl turned into a sickening smile at his reaction was the moment Peter realized that this was not the kind, caring Ken he’d come to know. The teen in front of him was, somehow, the cruel, misguided Digimon Emperor.

“You’re trespassing,” The other boy said, waving his hands out towards the forest in a grand gesture. His smile widened a fraction yet still refused to meet his eyes. “But I am merciful. Hand over the message, and I’ll allow you to leave and never return.”

Peter resisted the urge to let his hand fly to the pocket where the message currently hid. Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced himself to think, to sort his mind. The Ken he knew would never put that outfit on again, for any reason, let alone act like that unless he was being coerced or controlled. The Ken he knew would also be accompanied by his partner Digimon, Wormmon, no matter what happened. The two were inseparable, more so than any other partner pair, including him and Yaamon were.

On the subject of Yaamon, or rather Impmon, his partner being missing was suspicious. If the Digimon Emperor was here, and his partner had been taken (even the passing thought of this was enough to spike Peter’s anxiety, and so he quickly shuttered the idea away), then Impmon would also be here so the teen could gloat. If not, then why would his partner not be here with him? What could be so important that they’d separate in the Digital World?

Images came rushing back to him, fast enough that he felt the need to hold onto his head for support. The start of the training exercise, his web being cut, leaving Sam behind, being caught by Wanda. Red. Red. Red. The last thing he remembered was red. When was that? They’d left this morning. It was evening now, the trees made everything dark. Was that part of the illusion? He looked back to the Digimon Emperor standing in front of him, the realization coming full circle as he realized the boy had stood still through his entire freak out.

“You’re not real,” Peter half-whispered to the false-Ken in front of him. “You’re just a bad memory now.”

“Maybe,” The Emperor said. “But that isn’t.” He pointed to the line of trees, where a white mist had formed.

Compelled by some unknown force, Peter walked toward it, realizing that it wasn’t a mist, and the white wasn’t in the air. The white was empty, a nothing, the abyss where things had been erased and taken, removed and deconstructed, currently floating away as if nothing were more normal. Trees and plants and ground, the very empty area that made up the air that nothing normally stood in had become the Digital-less abyss. As it encroached on Peter’s feet, he shuffled backwards as far as he could while keeping the white nothing within eyesight.

“No.” His voice was louder, clearer than he thought it would be. “No. None of this is real. Wanda- she has mind powers; she must’ve done something. Took stuff from my head and made illusions, something. You’re lying to me!”

“How can I be lying if I’m from your head, Peter?” The false-Ken asked, not bothering to even look up at Peter. His expression shifted, looking between himself and the ever-growing white abyss. “Are you so afraid of little Ken Ichijouji that you’d put him equal to the world coming apart, Peter? I wonder, does he know that you hate him?”

The whiplash of the change in conversation drug an answer of out Peter. “I don’t hate him.”

“What was that? Couldn’t hear you.”

“I don’t hate him, I hate you!” Peter yelled. “You’re the one that attacked me and my friends, you’re the one that destroyed everything and didn’t care, you’re the one that had no concept of life and killed living, breathing creatures because you could. Ken is nothing like you!”

“Ken is me.” The false-Ken lifted his glasses and revealed the spitting image of the face Peter knew as one of his friends. “It’s just an outfit change, Peter. How do you know he’s not the one hiding this from Izzy? He has the access. He’s got the intelligence. You’ve thought of it before, haven’t you? There was a reason it took so long for anyone to trust him.”

“He earned everyone’s trust,” Peter spat back at the illusion. “Especially after…” He gulped. This subject was entirely taboo, the death of a partner. Even if they did return, no one spoke about the event or the time in-between. Some Digidestined weren’t so lucky as to get their partner back.

"After Wormmon died for him?” The false-Ken nearly crooned with victory. With every word, he walked closer and closer into Peter’s space, forcing the other teen away. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? It took the death of his partner, the one being that never left his side no matter what he did, to stop all his atrocities. Even then, I wonder what happened when he realized Wormmon couldn’t really die.”

"Stop it!” Peter shouted. “How dare you, you sick piece of-“ When his foot caught in something that felt entirely unlike any other thing, Peter cut off with a yelp. When he looked down and saw the white abyss, grappling at his feet rippling and deconstructing, partially reconstructing only to deconstruct yet again, he couldn’t help the terrified scream that fell past his lips. As he struggled to remove his foot from the utterly terrifying nothing that he’d been caught in, he reached out for the illusion of Ken Ichijouji, hoping that the boy had at least enough humanity to save him from being erased from existence.

“Why, Peter,” The boy (illusion) said as Peter desperately tried anything to escape. “If none of this is real, then why are you so afraid?”

Notes:

Digimon
Wormmon
A green worm Digimon whose main attack is Sticky Net. He is a very timid Digimon and often has trouble sticking up for himself. Wormmon is also Ken Ichijouji's partner Digimon. During Ken's tenure as the Digimon Emperor, Wormmon stuck by him no matter what. Even after he was defeated and forced to reconfigure at the Primary Village, Wormmon forgave his partner for his actions and sought to help him return to the kind boy he once was.

Chapter 9

Peter’s journey home was unpleasant to say the least. After an uncomfortable ride back to the compound in a tension filled quinjet, then a quick trip to the infirmary to look him over that resulted in way too much fussing over the few scrapes and bruises he had, Peter finally got to say that he wanted to go home. As in, right then.

Apparently, no one was prepared for that outcome. No one was ready for a teenager forced to relive trauma (because, really, what else could Peter call that) wanting to spend the aftermath in a comforting environment. So, when Peter left to go pack his things, there was still that resounding silence that seemed like judgement.

Coward.

When he arrived at the front with his stuff, fully expecting to see Happy waiting to take him home, he saw Tony standing there instead. The older man had decided that he was going to drive Peter all the way home. For once, Peter did not feel up to the casual, blunt conversation or the loud rock music his mentor offered.

They arrived at Peter’s apartment at a time when May was, thankfully, also there. All Peter had to do was knock, and the door was opened to him. She blinked a few times before letting both of them in, watching as Peter, usually so neat, dropped his things where he stood and beelined to his bedroom. She followed in order to garner an explanation.

When she came back out, closing the door firmly behind her, Tony was still standing awkwardly in the middle of their living room, for the first time feeling completely at unease in the home. May frowned at him, then pointed to the kitchen stools.

“He told me the gist of what happened,” May said, placing a glass of water in front of Tony who gladly took the distraction for what it was. “So, you don’t have to do that. I would like to know why it happened.”

Tony grimaced. “Peter told me a while ago,” He started. “That none of the others at the compound like him. I joked that it was because he doesn’t spend any time with anyone. Only ever spends time with me and FRIDAY. So, I started asking FRIDAY to keep an eye on him more, for me. I know a lot more than he’d probably like me to about his eccentricities, but she doesn’t tell me anything sensitive.”

“The pertinent information here is that Peter is afraid of Vision. Causes an actual, physical reaction that he cannot control, one that tells him to avoid him, get as far away as possible. So, he just avoids everywhere Vision is, which is pretty much all the common areas. Wanda, having similar energy to Vision, causes a similar reaction, but they can be in the same room without Peter wanting to jump ship.”

“Wanda, like literally every other person in the compound, noticed this, but didn’t know the why of the situation. When she cornered Peter in the forest during the exercise, she tried to skim his mind for the reason behind the fear. Since it’s instinctual, there’s not really a conscious reason, so she threw in too much power searching and tossed Peter into a hallucinatory state. Or at lead that’s our running theory.” Tony swirled the water in his glass. “Since she didn’t know what she did, exactly, it took her a bit to undo it. I’m not sure what it will be, but there will be consequences for her. And that’s what I know.”

May hummed and stared down at her own glass, running her finger along the rim.

“May, what do you know about Ken?”

“What?” Her head whipped around faster than should be humanly possible, her eyes narrowed in on Tony to study him better. “What did Peter tell you about him?

“Peter hasn’t told me anything. That’s why I’m asking you.” Tony noted the way she relaxed and glanced back at the bedroom door that Peter was now safely behind. “Look, May, I know that Peter has been through a lot. My offer to help doesn’t just include the suit and teaching him how to throw a punch. We can get him some counseling, but I need to know what I’m working with here.”

Tony witnessed a war happen in May’s mind between telling him anything more or just leaving it at that, questions with no answers, ever. He could tell which side had won even before she opened her mouth.

“That’s Peter’s decision.”

The single question cut Tony like a knife.

Thank you for the offer, but I don’t trust you.

He stood up abruptly and readied himself to leave. “Well, whatever he decides, the offer will remain open.” Without waiting for the answer he knew he wouldn’t receive, Tony left the apartment.

           

 

The world’s heaviest textbook slammed into the desk Peter Parker had fallen asleep on, landing a mere two inches from where his head used to be. It was only due to quick reflexes and his nifty, newly coined Spidey-sense that Peter was both semi-awake and off the desk just before the weight landed, and just in time to start grabbing his now displaced materials and wayward Digital friend, who had been able to hide his small flinch as a roll off the desk and into Peter’s lap.

As the teen leaned down to pick up a pencil that had actually rolled onto the ground, he saw his teacher pick up the textbook out of the corner of his eye. The book in question was a math textbook, and the teacher in question was the math teacher, Ms. Hopkins. Rangy, never in what one could describe as a ‘good’ mood, and a solid half a foot taller than Peter, Ms. Hopkins’ class was not pleasant when both of them were having a good day. Peter didn’t see a need to participate, his only friend not being in the class and the class itself not being much of a challenge (it was just math). Ms. Hopkins referred to that as an ‘attitude’.

Today, Peter was not having a good day, and with the resting scowl not nearly hidden behind her wire-framed glasses, his mind didn’t have to work too hard to guess she wasn’t either.

“I’ve been lenient due to your circumstances, Mr. Parker, but I will not allow sleeping in my classroom.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” He protested a bit weakly.

“Oh?” She asked, the corners of her mouth just barely twitching upward, almost as if she forcibly held back the smile at the absurdness, the audacity. “Then, you would know what question I posed to the class a moment ago.” This time the smile came, mocking.

“I can’t.” Peter ground his teeth together to avoid doing something worse.

“Don’t be modest!” A flash of teeth from her. An eye twitch from him. A dance, seeing which one would snap first. “With your grades, I know you can answer it correctly. Come on, up to the board.”

“I can’t answer it,” Peter said, hunching in on himself. Everyone was looking at him. Making mental notes of the confrontation between Peter, the reclusive weird kid with the doll that the teachers tended to tip-toe around for reasons no one knew and Ms. Hopkins, who seemed to finally have enough of walking on eggshells.

“Because you were sleeping.” The teacher finished for him, her tone allowing no more arguments. “You’re old enough to know that lying, especially such an obvious one, only hurts you…” Peter sighed internally and waited to be handed his detention slip. Detention wasn’t too bad; it was just that he had far more important things to do. And if it was with the gym teacher, he could usually just… leave after the man started watching sports replays on his phone and he wouldn’t notice.

“He’s not lying,” The girl in the desk next to him spoke up, momentarily pausing her doodling beside her notes. The unexpected interruption cut off Ms. Hopkins before she had the chance to write up a slip and dragged Peter out of his own head. He racked his brain for her name and a reason why she would intervene on his behalf. Ned was, quite literally, the only friend he had that still lived in New York, and he was not popular at school. At all.

The girl, (Michelle, Peter remembered in the middle of one of her sentences), continued. “He wasn’t paying attention, sure, but he wasn’t sleeping. Peter’s cramming last minute for the Academic Decathlon tryouts. They’re this afternoon. If you give him detention, he won’t be able to make it, and the team will probably lose VIP before he had a chance to join.”

Peter might not have been as quick on the uptake, especially when it came to Michelle and her genius manipulation of a lonely high-school math teacher, but even being the loner he was, he knew a enough facts and enough rumors, after the fact, understand how she’d gotten him off the hook. Fact, the Academic Decathlon was a popular school team, given Midtown’s emphasis on academics, and needed fresh members after most of the members either graduated or moved away from New York, which was now being dubbed a ‘hot-zone’ in the news. Fact, the team’s faculty advisor was Mr. Harrington, a young, slightly awkward science teacher that had repeatedly told Peter that he should join the team and was constantly giving him study materials for the tryouts. Peter never had the heart to outright tell him no, but he certainly didn’t actually study for the tryouts.

Rumor had it that Ms. Hopkins had a thing for Mr. Harrington. Rumor had it that Mr. Harrington was a little too obsessed with getting the Academic Decathlon team to win nationals, just once.

As Peter walked out of second period, still trying to work out how Michelle knew exactly what to say so fast, he felt her brush past him and heard her mutter, “See you nerds at tryouts.”

The confused look on his face only cleared up when he turned to see Ned waving at him from the door of the next classroom over.

           

           

“What you’re saying is impossible. Have you checked twice?”

“Of course I checked twice,” Tony ground out, frustrated less by Natasha and more by the situation. “Something the kid has on him corrupts FRI’s surveillance system in real-time, because I know no one’s messed with them after. I just don’t know the how or why. We already know his real name, face, and what he does on weekends,” Tony tossed his tablet haphazardly on the table in front of him, allowing the team members who were in the room to see what he’d been trying to figure out since coming back from the Parker residence.

Peter Parker clearly wasn’t ready to trust him with whatever was bothering him to the point of panic-inducing nightmares and terrifying hallucinations in the forest. Maybe a fear so intense that it forced Wanda’s powers to manifest itself would be best left to someone with a better hold on their own situation. But Tony Stark was never known for just letting things go, especially not when it meant someone he cared about could get hurt. Was being hurt.

Tony sighed and accepted a bowl of spaghetti from Steve, who then proceeded to pass bowls around the table. The only good thing to come out of the past few days was a tentative cease-fire between the two on any hostilities. When FRIDAY called Steve to help Peter with the nightmare, a claim she believed was due to the teen’s enhanced abilities and not for any ulterior motives, the other man had been acting differently both towards and over the two of them. The disastrous team exercise only added to that. Whether he felt sympathetic, pity, or guilty for having ignored the kid up until that point, Tony didn’t care. They weren’t fighting anymore, and he had bigger things to focus on.

            “Audio is entirely cut off in his room, sometimes when he isn’t even there. I know there’s no video in those, but FRIDAY records logs of our conversations with her, right?” Natasha continued after Tony nodded. “It’s the doll, or at least in the doll. He leaves the doll in his room for training and whenever he’s not eating in the common room or with you. He brought it on the quinjet. Check the logs.”

It took only a moment to pull up the records in question and verify that they were also corrupted.

"Where’d he get that thing anyway?” Steve asked as he sat down with his own lunch.

Tony leaned back in his chair and began to rattle off everything he knew about Peter’s ‘companion’. “Had it since he was ten. You’ll see it in every photo of him since. He’s carried it around literally everywhere since his uncle, uh, died.” A short, uncomfortable silence fell. “Anyway, the kid acts like it’s alive. I highly doubt he’d be the one to tear it open and put a jammer in it.”

Clint, who had dragged the tablet over for a closer look, hummed in agreement. “Because he didn’t. The electrical interference is part of an anomaly SHIELD used to keep track of. That thing is the jammer.”

           

           

“Are you sure you really want me to try out for Academic Decathlon with you?” Ned asked. He paused, but not for an answer. “Are you sure you really want to try out for Academic Decathlon?”

“For the thousandth time in the last hour, Ned, yes. Well, no.” Peter frowned. Why did life have to be so complicated?

Michelle slid into the space right across from them, making their lunch table seem just a bit less empty. “Not chickening out on me already, are you? You owe me Parker.”

“Owe you?” Ned raised an eyebrow in her direction, in his direction, and then in everyone’s general direction. “What did you do? What did she do? What did you do?”

“She helped me get out of a detention,” Peter mumbled, stuffing what had to be three-day-old peas into his mouth as he internally cursed himself for being too drained to pack a lunch this morning. After downing the peas, Peter forcefully softened his expression, hoping the grimace from the taste and embarrassment from remembering second period didn’t show through at all, and said, “Thank you, Michelle.”

“You can thank me by actually showing up to tryouts. Both of you, but especially you, Parker. I wasn’t kidding when I said you’d be a VIP.” Michelle grabbed the bowl of peaches from her tray and the bowl of peas from Peter’s and swapped them. Before he could get a word of protest in, she devoured the rest of the peas, and began to work on her own lunch. “Eat your peaches, Parker. And call me MJ. Only my mom and teachers call me Michelle.”

“Only if you stop calling me Parker.”

Michelle- no, MJ smiled. “Deal, Petey.”

           

 

For once, one of the comedy of errors in Peter’s life was leading to a normal teenage situation. Ignore the Digimon he held in one arm and the phone with Tony Stark’s number tucked in his backpack, and he was just another teenager being dragged by his friends to tryouts.

And friends. Plural, multiple, more than one friend. Even if it was just to get him on the Academic Decathlon team (which, Peter had now found out, she was already on through the last round of tryouts), MJ had his back. She wanted to hang around the weird kid with the doll.

Peter just wished that she’d acknowledge that Yaamon was there.

Ned held open the doors to the old band room where practices were usually held, and tryouts were currently being held. Peter walked inside, followed closely behind by MJ and Ned, and froze after seeing who else was already inside the room.

"Parker?” Flash Thompson sneered from the plastic chair he had sprawled into. Mr. Harrington hadn’t arrived from his classroom yet. “What are you doing here?”

MJ crossed her arms. “Peter and Ned are here to try out.”

Flash snorted. “What? Is his little dolly gonna press the button for him?”

“No,” MJ said, a sharp smile growing on her face. “You will.”

The popular teen jumped out of the chair, toppling it over behind him. “What did you say, you little-“

The entire room shook, knocking Flash off of his feet, and through the sliver of a window on the door, Peter swore he saw a blast of fire. Lights flashed in the room, and soon after the loudest emergency announcement Peter had ever heard in his life began.

RNNNNNT! RNNNNNT! EMERGENCY. EMERGENCY. EXIT THE BUILDING.

Peter looked outside the window that led outdoors and saw a thick, white fog had descended around the school while they were making their way to the band room. In his arms, Yaamon tensed, his pupils narrowing slightly as he sniffed the air in that direction. Ignoring the alarm blaring around them, his bully, and his friends, Peter walked to the window and laid his on the unusually hot glass. Pulling his sleeves over his hands, he unlocked the metal latch carefully and looked out.

Only to duck back in immediately, just barely dodging a fireball thrown by Meramon at something in the other direction.

Chapter 10

Summary:

“Oh, thank God you’re all safe,” Mr. Harrington said. Then, in a voice Peter wouldn’t have heard without super-hearing, “I can’t have any more tryouts ending with burnt kids.”

Notes:

sorry?
idk what to say the world got weird.

“The electrical interference from Peter’s ‘toy’ is part of an anomaly SHIELD used to keep track of.” Clint placed particular emphasis on the word toy that Tony knew he should press the man on, but only made him more defensive over Peter. “That thing is the jammer.”

After a moment of silence that seemed longer than it really was, Tony spoke. “Alright, birdbrain, if SHIELD was tracking this, then why wasn’t it ever in any of its files? Even before Washington happened, I got a peak at SHIELD’s little book of secrets a few times and didn’t see any mention of a pattern of electrical anomalies anywhere in the world. Something that can do this,” He paused to gesture at the distorted security images still being displayed. “To my tech should be pretty high priority.”

He barely caught the snort and muttered ‘Ego much?’ from Clint. “You just saw first-hand what it can do to tech just by being in the room. Now think about what someone can use it for with intent.” Clint said. “From what I remember, everyone involved with these things directly were kids. It was like they latched onto them for some reason,” He paused with a grimace. “It gave me the creeps, so I asked to be reassigned.”

“You quit the assignment?” Natasha cut in with surprise.

“I didn’t really enjoy stalking kids, Nat,” Clint said. “Especially not freaky, cult-ish kids that were, according to Fury, being subtly brainwashed through toys and games into largescale terrorism.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Remember any names?” Stark asked. “Any specific details?”

Clint sighed and shook his head. “This was years ago. I didn’t think I’d ever see one of them again. I didn’t want to.”

“Wow, useful,” Tony muttered.

“Not like you’ve got anything to bring to the table,” Clint snapped.

“Shut up, both of you,” Natasha interrupted. “The answer is simple. We need the doll.” Every pair of eyes turned to her as she shrugged.

“What?” Tony asked.

“We need to get the doll,” She repeated, nodding to herself. “I was never assigned to this mission, so I can’t corroborate. Clint says he was only on it for a few days, so it’s not he knows much anyways. There’s no digital evidence of SHIELD’s findings for you to try and pick through, and,” She paused for just a second and turned to address Clint directly, “You say that only Fury had the full paper report.”

At Clint’s affirmative nod, she continued. “Both Nick Fury and the only person he’d trust something like that with, Maria Hill, have been MIA for months. There’s no telling where he hid it, if it’s still around.” At this she shrugged. “We visit the kid, separate him and the toy for a little bit and see what it actually is. If it’s harmless, he gets it back.”

She didn’t have to elaborate what would happen if it wasn’t a harmless toy.

Tony knew that either way, Peter would be getting his doll back entirely intact, or at least with the same stuffing it had before. He looked around and could tell he was the last holdout.

“Alright,” He said. “Let’s go see a kid about a toy.”

 

 

Bubbles began to form as the window’s glass grew red-hot, falling in on itself as the passing fireball reshaped it into a molten, amorphous blob. At the formation of a new avant-garde sculpture installed right into the wall, everyone stared.

“Is everyone okay?” Peter asked to the room.

“How hot does fire need to be to melt a window like that?” Ned asked, looking between the still-cooling glass and the others.

“Hot enough to be able to melt us,” Peter replied. “Door, now.”  

In a decidedly disorderly fashion, the four rushed to the double doors of the band room, Peter only barely stopping to scoop up Yaamon, and scrambled out into the smokey hallway. The alarm that had been blaring just a moment ago cut off abruptly, the accompanying lights flashing with no real pattern. Peter ducked his head to shield his eyes and cover his mouth and nose.

As Flash argued with MJ about what exit was closest, Peter stayed at the back of the pack, looking for a spot he could use to duck away in order to go investigate the Digimon he swore he saw out in the fog.

“Kids!” Peter internally groaned despite the situation as he turned to his left and looked around a nearby corner to see Mr. Harrington running up to them, his breathing implying that he was either incredibly out of shape, had been running for a while, was having a panic attack, or some combination of the three. “Oh, thank God you’re all safe,” Mr. Harrington said. Then, in a voice Peter wouldn’t have heard without super-hearing, “I can’t have any more tryouts ending with burnt kids.”

A tremor shook the walls around them, rattling nearby lockers, jostling desks and chairs, and shaking doors in their frames. It wasn’t strong enough to knock anything over, save for an ill-prepared Ned who was quickly hoisted up with a hand from MJ.

“Mr. Harrington!” MJ yelled over the alarms that were now cutting in and out with static in between. “We really need to get out of here.”

“Right! Right.” The teacher maneuvered his way through the group of teens and positioned himself at the front of the pack. “Nearest fire exit is this way, everyone follow me!”

“Wait!” Ned shouted, stopping everyone in their tracks. “That’s where that big explosion came from. If we go that way, we’ll be running straight into whatever set it off.”

“But the only other way is where the fireball from the explosion went to,” Michelle said, pausing only for a coughing fit. “If we head that way, we’ll be running straight into whatever fire it set and more of this smoke.”

“We don’t have time for this!” Peter shouted. The smoke was starting to mess with his partner’s sense of smell. The heat was definitely reaching uncomfortable levels, despite the lack of flames in the hallway they were in. They needed to get out of here, now.

“You’re right,” Mr. Harrington muttered, finally taking control of the situation. “Kids follow me. No arguments.”

They followed Mr. Harrington in a loose crowd. Ned hung in the back near Peter, with Michelle and Flash both ready to try and take the lead the moment Mr. Harrington slipped up again. Peter resigned to the fact that he couldn’t slip away and acknowledging that it might be too dangerous to go off alone right now.

But he had about a million questions he needed answers to and going after Meramon and whoever he was fighting was the only way he’d get any answers.

“Hey Pete?” Ned’s voice, beginning to get hoarse, startled Peter out of his thoughts on the Digimon. “Um, couldn’t you like, call your boss?”

“My…” Peter widened his eyes in understanding. “Oh. Uh, no. I, uh, don’t think he’d come for some fire at a high school. ‘Sides, my phone’s in my bag back in the room.”

“Oh.”

He patted Ned’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll all get out of here in a few minutes anyways and it’ll become another day in New York.”

The two turned the corner and stepped into a new hallway, their conversation having dragged them behind the rest of their group. Just as the exit came into view, the building’s very foundation began to shake. Rows of lockers threatened to topple over, walls begged to collapse against the strain, classroom doors swung open and shut as the desks and chairs inside fell to their sides and began to crack as they continued to thrash about. The force of it sent the group to the ground.

Peter and Ned crab-walked away from the nearest rows of lockers as it teetered and finally toppled, cutting them off from Michelle, Flash, and Mr. Harington. Ceiling tiles began to crack, crumble, and fall around them all in shards. The wall in between them all bowed inward.

“Ned, watch out!”

Peter pushed Ned as hard as he could to get his friend out of the way as the wall came crashing down. His friend fell on the opposite side of the debris. The Digidestined cried out as a stray brick slammed into his leg just right and he felt something crack. Ignoring the pain now shooting up his leg, he scrambled back away from the still falling objects, and hoped Ned had the sense to do the same on the other side.

Just as suddenly as the world around them started shaking, everything settled into its precarious place. Ceiling tiles, pieces of what once was a sturdy wall, and bent lockers blocked the hallway between the rest of the group and Peter.

“Is everyone alright? Relatively?” Mr. Harrington asked. He was answered with a chorus of ‘Yes’s. “Peter, can you get through?”

Peter looked at the mass of debris in front of him. “Not through here.” He grimaced at his leg. “I’ll just have to go around!”

“Peter, if this is happening here, you have no idea how bad the rest of the building is!” Mr. Harrington said. “We’ll go outside and get some help; you need to just wait here until they come and get you.” A pause for and answer.

No answer came.

“Peter?” Mr. Harrington repeated. Still nothing. He slouched his shoulders slightly. “He already left, didn’t he.”

 

 

After only a few minutes of walking, Peter ducked inside a classroom to rest his leg. He slid to the floor, allowing Yaamon to drop out of his arms, and took deep, desperate breaths to try and clear some of the smoke away. In the end he just ended up coughing.

“Petey, couldn’t you just climb outta here?” Yaamon said, looking at the window with a bit of hope in his eyes.

“Those windows lead to the courtyard, which is basically in the middle of the school,” Peter replied. He began reaching into his pocket to pull out his Digivice and communicator. “That’s also where Meramon’s fireball came from.” He pointed it at his partner, allowing the bright light of Digivolution to cover Yaamon, leaving Impmon in his place. His partner continued to stare out the window.

“I can’t smell any of them anymore,” Impmon said, his scowl deepening.

Peter frowned with him. “It’s probably the smoke covering it up.”

“Maybe,” His friend replied, turning away from the window. Then he said with far too much determination, “We’ll see when we go to fight them.”

“What?” Peter snapped, eyes widening. “We can’t take him on alone, Impmon, let alone him plus whoever he’s fighting. You know that.”

“But you’re-“

“Hurt. I’m hurt,” Peter said, squashing any objection. He decided to change the subject quickly. “Can you go and see what classroom this is?” Peter asked as he began to type out a message on his communicator.

Impmon ran to the door to check, calling out, “It’s room 213!” as he ran back.

“If all the real-world exits are blocked, we’ll just use a digital one. The computer labs are only couple halls down.” Peter braced himself against the wall, gratefully accepting his partner’s help in standing up again. Peter stood up, using the wall and a helping hand from his partner as support.

“What about the Digimon?”

Peter bit his lip in thought. It was taking him much longer than usual to think of any sort of plan, and he wondered if the smoke and fumes were getting to him. “Ken and Davis are in the Digital World. They can come back and help us beat these guys.”

Another tremor shook the building, forcing the two of them to hold onto the wall for support.

Peter frowned at Impmon, who looked at him with a worry he hadn’t seen in a long time. “We need to hurry.”

           

 

Impmon helped Peter limp his way down to the computer labs. Peter kept his eyes peeled for another fire exit along the way, while trying to figure out where the tremors that shook the foundations every few minutes and sent lockers and bricks skittering across the floor flying were coming from.

When they reached the labs, Peter’s face fell. All of the school computers looked like a Tyrannomon with a personal grudge stomped on all of them. 

Maybe that is what happened, Peter thought, trying to contain the hysteria bubbling up in his chest long enough to think of what to do next. Maybe some Digimon had a personal grudge against my school’s terrible computers and decided to take action.

His leg throbbed. His head swam.

That’s kind of hilarious. A Digimon with a grudge against computers, was the last thing Peter thought before he collapsed on top of his partner.

Chapter 11

Notes:

uhh this chapter is where a lot more of the mixing of the lores that i've done starts so please just stick with me if you're confused there will be more explanations

p.s. i love all of the support that this story has gotten, even while i took a break from it!! you're all so wonderful!!

Despite the fact that Peter’s abilities making the Captain a necessity in his training, the child had very little experience in combat, and far too much flexibility and too little muscle for Rogers’ fighting style to be effective for him. While she didn’t have super strength, Natasha did have the knowledge Peter needed to elevate his skills. That was, after he learned from her and Rogers to throw a punch properly. Either way, Natasha was at almost every one of his training sessions, either teaching him while listening (not un-fondly) to his constant nervous prattle or carefully watching him be taught as Steve did the same.

It was because of this that, whether the child knew it or not, Natasha understood Peter in a different way than Tony.

Natasha had seen how Peter’s first reactions to a dangerous situation were to simultaneously remain out of harm’s way and take danger head on. She had seen the horrified look on Peter’s face after she explained that the small drones, the ones they use for target practice, become more difficult to hit and learn your patterns through a simple AI Tony built and how he demanded not to use them again. She even caught glimpses of the teen in the hallway once, on his way down to the lab, whispering in his toy’s ear with one of the few smiles she’d seen from him during his time at the compound. All of these were things Tony liked to refer to as eccentricities. They were things Natasha thought they should refer to as red flags.

It was because of these that the moment Clint described the children he once tailed as ‘freaky’ and ‘cult-ish’ that Natasha thought the connection might have some merit. It was also because of this that she thought she knew about what to expect when they’d set off to go and collect the youngest Avenger for an impromptu interrogation session.

Best case scenario was as follows; Peter Parker submitted to his toy being inspected non-invasively. It was just that, a toy. Some other strange phenomenon was happening, or they were under attack, and they’d get a little more excitement in their lives in the next few weeks. Tony Stark’s fabricator was good enough to cover up any damage without Peter noticing.

Worst case scenario: someone, somewhere was recruiting children for an unknown organization and giving out dangerous technology under the guise of ‘toys’. This unknown had recruited Peter Parker, who was now in the thick of their propaganda and, even a worse possibility, had become enhanced through them. The Avengers had a potential leak and an unknown criminal organization to fight that was filled with children and could cripple their security systems via proximity. If this were the case, life would get a lot more interesting for a while.

Two ends of a very large spectrum. Before they made the arrangements on who would collect the boy, Natasha would’ve put money down on things landing somewhere firmly closer towards the worst-case scenario, just based on how their luck had gone so far.

Then she waited, watched, and listened. She waited for the signal that meant they were returning with the boy and the doll. She watched the updates to national news, to see if they would show the Avengers fighting with New York’s resident vigilante over something so trivial as a toy.

She listened as Tony said Peter’s school caught fire while he was inside, and the boy was being brought to the compound instead of the hospital due to his healing factor. How he had smoke in his lungs and a fractured leg.

And while Natasha Romanoff was a woman who planned, she was also a woman who adapted.

“FRIDAY,” She said, forcing her voice to remain impassive after hearing that this child nearly burned to death. “After Peter is all set in the infirmary, get the containment cell ready.”  

 

 

“Any complications with Parker?”

Tony carefully put the “game system” that he now suspected was some sort of communicator down on the lab table. While it had been simple to guess what it was, the hard part was cracking the code. Whatever language it wrote in, it wasn’t one he was inherently familiar with. The other device steadfastly refused to even turn on, despite the fact that Tony was entirely sure it was powered fully.

He ignored them for the moment and turned to Natasha. “No,” He said, before adding, “Peter will be physically fine, with some bed rest.”

Her eyes flicked down to the items on the table. “And how are you doing with figuring these out?”

“Not great, actually. Thanks for asking,” Tony paused, letting out a long-suffering sigh, “First of all, they’re encoded in a language that doesn’t seem to exist, at least not on Earth. FRIDAY keeps telling me she can tell what it says, but when I ask her for a translation, she forgets what we’ve been talking about.”

“That’s odd.”

“It makes sense, considering that whatever these are seem to be connected with that thing in the other room. Anyway,” Tony continued. “Once I’ve cracked it, I should be able to read the messages.”

“Wait. It’s a… phone?”

“More like a PDA,” Tony explained. “A Personal Digital Assistant, not public affection. I didn’t know people still made these, let alone used them.” He huffed out a small laugh. “No wonder the kid was able to sneak it past us as a game.”

“You know we’re going to have to interrogate him when he wakes up,” Natasha said softly.

Tony’s small smile fell. The silence was awkward. Natasha uncharacteristically tried to fill it.

“The doll can talk.”

 “Come again?” Tony asked, snapping out of his funk immediately. “I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

“The doll, it can talk.” She shrugged. “I haven’t asked any questions yet, but it has the ability to answer them. We could talk to it first.”

Tony muttered, almost to himself, “Does the universe want to throw any other curveballs at me today?”

“Boss,” FRIDAY said. “Thor has just landed outside of the compound.”

           

 

The lowest level of the labs at the Avengers compound held multiple containment units, each prepped with everything from bullet proof observation windows to radiation shielding. Tony’s original intention to have a place for the more volatile experiments that he knew would eventually happen.

He never could have guessed they’d end up being a near perfect holding cell for whatever this thing was.

Tony now regarded the thing in the containment cell much more carefully than he ever had before. His first instinct was that it was an AI of some sort. This made sense, given how often he’d seen the thing be perfectly still for hours. It mimicked all the aspects of life so easily, from the little twitches in its face and eyes to the breaths it took every few moments. Completely autonomous, from what he’d observed so far.

Further still, just as it knew how to hide all this time, to hold as still as possible and pretend to be merely a toy, it also knew that the gig was up the moment Tony handed it off to Steve and Natasha to take down here. He’d seen the thing immediately tense and wriggle as hard as possible to escape their grasp, then the sharp gasp just after the trio turned the corner.  

He didn’t miss the wrapping on Steve’s hand when he saw him next, nor everyone keeping a close eye on the sharp teeth.

Whoever made this thing was a genius, just based on what he already knew. They were also an utter madman for putting something this dangerous anywhere near a child. Worse, it had been hanging out with Peter for years, for who knew what reason.  

“You said it talks?” He asked Steve, who set himself to guarding the little creature ever since they’d placed it in the cell.

“Yeah. I’ve tried asking a few questions, but it’s just been cursing at me for the past half-hour. At least, I think so. It’s very,” Tony could’ve sworn the man was fighting off a grin, “Creative in phrasing.”

Tony leaned over and pressed the button that allowed for communication within the cell. “Hello?”

A low growl answered him.

“Look, I know you can talk,” Tony said. “Can’t we pretend to have something like a civil conversation?”

There was a moment of silence before the creature opened its mouth again. Tony expected another growl, but instead one sentence came through clearly. 

“Suck a toad, ya Andromon-wannabe.”

Tony set his mouth in a firm line as he turned his glare at Steve. “You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?”

“I asked if it’d answer a few questions earlier,” Steve said. “It told me I should ‘see if I could find a Frigimon that would be nice enough to put me back on ice’.” At the shocked looks, he held up his hands placatingly. “It was less of an actual threat, and more of a… harsh comment made in anger.”

“How would it even know about that?”

“It’s public information,” Natasha answered from near the doorway.

Steve grimaced at the reminder. “If it was ever around Peter when the kid read a book on me, or went to a museum with the right exhibit,” Steve paused for a second before reigning in his irritation on the subject, “We can assume it knows whatever Peter knows, can’t we?”

“I think that’d be a safe assumption.” Natasha shouldered her way in-between the two men and pushed the microphone button. “Yaamon?” She asked, her tone noticeably softer than before.

The creature was too startled by the familiar name to growl.

Natasha continued. “We’re sorry about sticking you in there alone, Yaamon, but we don’t know anything about you. We just recently found out you weren’t just Peter’s toy,” Natasha let a little bit of worry creep into her voice. “I’m sure you’re smart enough to imagine how shocking that is, can’t you?”

To the surprise of everyone else in the room, the creature began rocking. No, wait, it was nodding.

“We don’t know what you are or what you can do. And Peter,” The moment she said his name, Tony swore he could see the creature’s ever-present glare soften slightly before hardening, “Is just a kid. It’s our job to keep him safe.”

"I’m Petey’s partner,” Yaamon protested. “Me ‘nd him keep each other safe.”

“What do you need to keep him safe from?” Natasha pressed. When silence followed once again, she brought out one of the items that Tony confiscated, the blue device with strange symbols and held it up to the observation window. “Do you know what this is, Yaamon?”

“That doesn’t belong to you,” Yaamon snarled, his fur puffing out. “You need to give it back right now.”

"What’s so important about it?”

“It’s Petey’s,” Yaamon spat out, his eyes searching the room behind the few he could see in the window. “He needs his things in case something happens.”

The gears turning in Natasha’s head were nearly audible. After a few seconds of silence, she said, “Don’t worry, Yaamon. I’ll be sure to get it back to him soon enough,” and turned off the mic, completely ignoring the shout she cut off. “That was informative.”

“I feel like I’m missing something, because I got next to nothing from that.” Steve said.

“Yaamon,” She gestured to the creature behind her, “Called them partners. Not friends, or companions, or even brothers, but partners. That implies they have some sort of job or activity they do together. It also refuses to speak, but only on specifics. He admits that this-“ She pointed to the object in her hand. “Is Peter’s, and it’s very important, and that they keep each other safe, but not what they do, or what it’s used for, or what they need to be kept safe from. I’d usually blame a lack of trust in authority, but with Peter we know that isn’t true. He, at the very least, trusts Tony. And Yaamon, being around Peter all the time, probably would too.”

“So, it’s probably a need to protect specific information. Even after being found out, someone, or something, is keeping Yaamon from spilling the beans. This same thing is probably what kept Peter from telling anyone. Now, this,” She continued as she handed the small device back to Tony. The man still needed to figure out what it was, after all. “And the other one you confiscated are most likely connected to whoever is pulling the strings in this whole thing.” She turned to fully face Tony. “Is it possible to find out where the messages are coming from?”

“There’s still messages coming and going, so it’s just a matter of time,” Tony confirmed. “Once I’m able to read them, it’ll be a lot easier.”

“Then we just need to know the purpose of this one,” Natasha said. “But we do know it’s important.”

"You got all of that out of five sentences?” Steve asked.

“Six,” Natasha corrected. “There’s a reason I was one of SHIELD’s best agents.”

 

 

Peter woke up to a sharp pain in his throat and chest as he sucked in a breath. He blinked away the last bits of sleep as he took in the sterile white walls and the lingering throbs in his leg. Eyes widening, everything came rushing back to him.

In seconds he was struggling to climb out of the bed to find someone, anyone to tell him where his partner was. Did they think he was a trinket and leave him in the building? Did he escape on his own to the Digital World? Did he leave when he saw Peter rescued and go home to Aunt May?

Where was Yaamon.

“-alm down, Peter,” FRIDAY was saying to him from above. “Someone will be coming in to check on you. I must ask you to return to bed.”

Peter froze and took a better look around. “FRI?” He asked and heard a short beep in response from the AI. “Am I at the compound?”

“Yes,” came the short reply. “You were transferred here nearly immediately to hide your healing factor.” The next time the AI spoke, her tone sounded worried. “You’ve been unconscious for over a day.”

“A whole day?” Peter spluttered as the door to the room opened. “Mr. Stark, how did I-“

Peter froze as Thor, Prince of Asgard and the one Avenger on the team that was an actual alien, walked into the small room with a confused look on his face.

“What is a child doing here?” He asked to himself, as he looked Peter up and down. A buzzing ran down the teen’s spine as he was silently measured, Thor’s eyes widening at whatever hidden thing he saw. The two stared at each other in silence for a few seconds too long, neither willing to make the first move to break it. Then Thor said, “I did not know Midgard housed Children of Yggdrasil.”

Children of what?

“Uhm.” Peter shifted uncomfortably in place, wondering if he should say anything. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Thor held up a placating hand. “Peace, Child,” And Peter could hear the capitalization. “I know of your kind and will not seek conflict. It would be more than foolish,” Thor continued, as if Peter were a new and entirely separate species from the humans he interacted with, “Where is your companion? Is he injured as well?”

Peter felt, for the first time in a long time, a sensation pouring over him. Opposite than the usual sensation he remembered, which told him to keep the secret, keep them safe, this one was an outpouring of the feeling of pure trust.

Peter left his face crumble as he rushed to wipe away tears. “He wasn’t here when I woke up,” He whined.

Without missing a beat, Thor nodded and held out his hand for Peter to grab. “Come, then,” he said, looking like he was a knight in a fairytale receiving dire orders from a king. “If you do not mind, I will enlist the aid of the man called Barton. He is showing me around the compound, for I have just arrived. Together we shall find your companion.”

“I don’t think-“ Peter began, but was cut off nearly immediately by a surprised shout from the doorway.

“Thor?” Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw Clint Barton edging into the room, a very confused expression on his face. “What are you doing? I leave you alone for two minutes to use the bathroom and when I come back you’ve made the sick kid cry?”

Peter’s frown deepened. “I’m not sick, and he didn’t make me cry, Mr. Barton.”

Clint blinked twice before looking at Peter as if seeing him for the first time. After a second, he recovered and continued. “But you are injured. For Christ’s sake, you just broke your leg, and Thor should not be trying to pull you out of bed like that.”

“The Child’s companion is missing,” Thor said, as if this explained everything. Perhaps it did. “We are duty-bound to reunite them, before the worst shall occur.”

“All of my stuff is gone, too,” Peter added, more towards Clint than Thor.

Still, Thor nodded with severity. “A dire situation indeed.”

Clint stared at the Prince of Asgard, gears turning behind his eyes before he came to a decision. “Thor, can I talk to you?” When the other man spread his hands out, as if saying ‘Go ahead!’ Clint grit his teeth. “Can I talk to you in private?”

The two went into the hallway, and the door shut firmly. Although the walls stopped him from hearing it, they didn’t stop Peter from seeing the conversation from the small observation window, showing a stoic Thor turning into an increasingly angry Thor and an annoyed Clint slowly becoming distressed, his face turning paler and paler.

After a solid five minutes, Thor led Clint back into the room, slightly straining to keep a smile on his face for Peter’s sake.

“Come, Child,” He said, “Barton has agreed to aid us.”

 

 

“Boss,” FRIDAY called out into the lab. “Clint is asking for the members of the team who are here to meet him in the conference room.”

“Please remind Barton of the following,” Tony replied without looking up from his work on trying to figure out these coded messages. He could just feel that he was getting close. “He’s supposed to be showing Thor around the compound so Thunderstruck doesn’t get lost while he’s here, and everyone else is a little busy right now, so unless he’s got something to add about all of this-“

“Thor made the original request for a neutral location for what he stated would be ‘negotiations for the release of prisoners’,” FRIDAY interrupted. “However, Peter Parker could not be moved too far, and thus he settled for Clint’s suggestion of the conference room.”

“Negotiations for the release of what?” Tony spluttered. Then the rest of what she said caught up to him. He turned to leave; his work completely abandoned on the table. “Just- Just explain to me everything on the way. And tell everyone else to show up, alright?”

Chapter 12

Notes:

I will now be taking questions about space Digidestined

The conference room that Clint led Peter and Thor to wait in was, thankfully, not far from the infirmary. This didn’t mean that Peter was able to avoid limping part of the way there. The room held a long, oval table with several rolling chairs along each side. On one side of the room there was enough open space to walk around comfortably. One entire wall was made of glass, which allowed anyone in the hallway walking by to see you, and vice versa. As Peter sat near the corner opposite the door, Thor took up a place beside him, his hammer firmly placed on the ground.

Clint remained standing at the front of the room, pacing back and forth.

“What exactly did you tell him?” Peter asked Thor. 

“Merely the truth, young warrior,” Thor answered. “If the Avengers do not release their prisoners, war unlike anything they have seen shall befall Midgard.”

Peter reared back in his seat as his eyes widened in shock. “Wha-“ He started before whipping his head to Clint and back again. “Who said anything about a war? And what prisoners?” His eyes flickered back and forth between Thor and Clint, trying to judge what the Asgardian meant.

Clint couldn’t help but pause in his pacing to answer. “Kid, you’re the prisoner he’s talking about. You and your weird doll thing.” At the continued look of confusion on the teen’s face, Clint raised an eyebrow. “This little clueless act you’ve got going on is making it hard for me to believe Thor knows what he’s talking about when it comes to ‘your kind’,” he said, using air quotes around the last two words.

“I’m not some kind of separate species,” Peter shot back before turning to look at Thor. “All I want is to get Yaamon and my stuff back. This isn’t something to go to war with all of Earth over.”

“Hardly,” The man agreed. “But war is hardly ever the intent when thinking of the safety of a comrade.”

As silence overtook the room again, Peter looked between the two adults on either side of him and wondered what, exactly, he got himself into this time.

 

Peter finally settled into a mixture of absolute panic and numbness that could be mistaken for a calmness. Somewhere, off in another part of his brain, was a little bit of rage at the fact that they’d taken his partner, but every other emotion was fighting for a chance at sunlight that it just barely had a chance. The even balance was tipped over once again into absolute panic when Clint alerted them to the rest of the team’s arrival.

"Cavalry’s here.”

The difference between the talk twelve-year-old Peter had with his family and the talk fourteen-year-old Peter was about to have with the very angry looking Avengers now filing into the room was clear.

Two years ago, when Peter revealed his status as a Digidestined to Aunt May and Uncle Ben, there was a palpable tension in the room as he tried his best to calmly explain exactly what Digimon and Digidestined and the Digital World were, and to answer all their questions without his aunt fainting for a second time. Waiting with bated breath for them to accept what he was saying, to accept his partner, exhausted Peter. Although deep down he knew that they would do so, there was still that feeling in the air between them, that sense of— ‘But, well, maybe not.’

Still, Peter chose to tell his family everything. He felt the mass rush of concern for his wellbeing, and no matter what fleeting spike of anxiety he had in the moment, he knew that everything would turn out alright.

This situation, while not completely out of his control now that Thor had entered the picture, was thrust upon him with no warning and no choice as to whether he would tell the Avengers. Where he once sat on a comfortable couch in his own living room and fumbled through his explanations with the help of his partner, now he sat taut under suspicious gazes alone.

Even as the last team member hanging around the depths of the compound settled just inside the open door, he remained utterly silent. It was Tony, who had taken a seat directly across from Peter once he entered and tried desperately to get his attention before giving up, who spoke first.

“Thor, you have a minute to explain to me just what the hell is going on and why you called us up here for prisoner negotiations.”

“I am acting within my capacity as a diplomat and a Prince of Asgard,” Thor said, looking each of his Midgardian team members in the eye. “I am here as a neutral party in hopes of peacefully negotiating the release of the Child of Yggdrasil and his companion, and the safe return of his items.”

"You’re talking about Peter and his living doll, right?” Tony scoffed. “You want us to just let that thing go? We don’t even know what it is! All I know is that,” He began ticking items off on his fingers one-by-one. “It can talk, it doesn’t have any of the markers of a living creature, it totally destroys my security systems just by being in the room, and that Fury tied things like it to a terrorist cell that was recruiting children.” At the last point, he motioned his head towards Peter, as if the teen sitting across from him was just another piece of evidence for his own side.  

“Tony,” Natasha’s voice cut across, ending his rant. “Calm down for a minute.” She turned, sparing only a passing glance at Peter. “Thor, why did you call Peter a Child of Yggdrasil?”

“Because he is one,” Thor said, raising an eyebrow at his teammates and offering no further explanation. “At first I assumed you knew, to some extent, which would explain his presence here in the compound. It was Barton that corrected my assumption and led us here.”

Natasha turned to Clint, and the man shrugged. “Kid says he’s human.”

“That’s because he is,” Tony answered. “Birth Certificate, Social Security Number, school records from Pre-K to High School. Papers, photos, videos, I could make a timeline for this kid from the moment he was born to right now,” Tony’s eyes bore into Thor’s, daring him to challenge this. “Peter Benjamin Parker is a human, born on Earth, raised on Earth.”

“So then how is it possible he’s one of these Children of Yggdrasil if he’s not Asgardian?” Steve asked from where he stood against a wall.

“It isn’t,” Tony answered. “Thor made a mistake.”

"It is true that I have not previously encountered any Children of Yggdrasil on Midgard,” Thor said slowly as he tilted his head to the side. “However, they are easily spotted by those who know what to look for. The close interaction with the creatures they hold as companions causes a shift in their own lifeforce, that which nothing else in the universe resembles.”

“So,” Tony started again, the anger having partially drained from him as Thor spoke and replaced with a wash of concern. “They’re parasites? Because I think you just said these things eat the lifeforce of kids they attach to.”

“They do not devour their lifeforce,” Thor corrected. “Merely change a bit of what is there to better equip the Children of Yggdrasil for their trials.”

Ideas and questions rattled around in Peter’s head as he tried to parse through the meaning of what Thor just said. Digimon shifted the ‘lifeforce’ of their Digidestined partners in some way. But Yaamon didn’t run off of the same stuff as Peter did, and neither did any of the other Digimon. Sure, they were living, breathing beings that ate and slept and liked to wrestle a lot, but they were fundamentally something else. Beings made of data, from a world made of data.

Then Peter remembered the way that his clothes had changed in the Digital World. How no human child had issues eating what was surely digital food and drinking digital water. How every Digidestined, while still fragile in their own human way, seemed just a little more durable despite the other not having any superpowers.

Am I… part digital?

“Okay,” Natasha murmured, then louder, “Okay. Let’s just move forward with an assumption that Peter is one of these Children,” She held up a hand to stop Tony from launching into another explanation on how it wasn’t possible. “What happens if we don’t return Yaamon and your things?”

Peter had been too focused on his own revelations to respond immediately when Natasha turned the questioning on him. He opened his mouth, but Thor beat him to it.

"There would be war,” Thor said gravely. “Unlike anything Midgard has seen before.”

Peter held back a wince as his head whipped to Thor. A hastily hissed, “No!” was shot at the prince, then Peter laid his palms on the table as he turned back to face the others. “No, there would not be a war. Stop saying that.”

Natasha stared directly at him. “So, you are claiming to be one of the Children of Yggdrasil?”

Peter took a calming breath. He could do this, he could. “I’ve never called myself that, but Thor knows too much about it for them and what I am to not be the same thing,” Peter paused, glancing at all the others in the room, his gaze lingering on Tony for a second longer than the others. “What do I have to do before you let Yaamon go?”

“Tell us what he is and what you are,” the woman prompted.

“Then you’ll let him go? And give me back my stuff?” Peter asked.

“If he’s not a threat, we’ll hand him over. And about your stuff,” She answered with a shrug. “We’ll see.”

The teen gulped; his throat dry at the prospect of what he was trying to do.

“We’re what’s called Digidestined,” Peter began slowly, knowing from experience that once he began it would all pour out in a fast ramble. “I’m a Chosen Child, and he’s my Digimon partner. That’s short for Digital Monster. We’re meant to protect the Digital World, which is where he’s from, by fighting bad Digimon and to keep them from getting to this world.”

“He’s not d-“ Peter cut himself off, because Yaamon could be very dangerous when he actually tried to be, especially if he was fighting a human. “We don’t mean any harm,” He settled on. “Please, let him go.”

“He showed up when you were ten,” Tony said more than asked.

Peter nodded. “Yaamon showed up as an egg. I helped him hatch and later we found out all this.”

“Peter,” He started before pausing to think over his words carefully. “Are you sure what you told us is the truth? The real truth. Not something an alien who showed up when you were ten told you is true.”

Peter’s heart plummeted into his stomach. They didn’t believe him. In this room were the actual Thor of Norse legends that also happened to be an alien, a teenager with spider-powers, and a man who was dethawed after being frozen in ice for seventy years. And they didn’t believe in Digimon, of all things.

“Yes,” Peter spat back, “I am sure. I’ve literally been to the Digital World.”

This shocked the room back into the uncomfortable silence once again.

“When and how did you travel to another planet?” Tony asked, his voice finally lacking the previous anger and entirely filled with concern.  

“It’s not-“ Peter sighed, rubbing his hands across his face. “It’s not an alien planet like you can fly there through space, okay? They don’t come down from ships. It’s like,” He hesitated again, wondering if this will just make him seem more off-kilter. “You have to travel through a portal thing to get there because it’s like this other dimension where everything is made of data. You have to go through a computer.”

“So you’re saying they live in another dimension made of ones and zeroes, that you can only get to through a portal in your computer?” Clint asked. “And they just so happen to pick kids from this one to defend and police it for them?” Clint asked. Peter gave him a so-so gesture.

“I know it sounds crazy, okay? I know.” Peter took another deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “I know it sounds insane because it is insane. It would be a lot simpler if they were just aliens. But I have ways to prove what I’m saying, if you give me my stuff back and let Yaamon go.”

One last moment of uncomfortable silence, glances that said more than Peter was picking up, and finally Natasha was holding his gaze again. She held out both her hands and in them were his communication device and Digivice. Peter cautiously reached forward to grab the items, unsure if this was some trick. She freely let him grab the two, then stood up, signaling for Steve to grab Peter.

“Prove it to us then.”

Chapter 13

Notes:

if anyone is interested I can make an FAQ on space digidestined

edit: Here is the FAQ!

Izzy sat at his desk, putting the last touches on a research paper he’d been putting off for weeks. It wasn’t normal for him to ignore his school projects like this (he usually left that up to Tai), but the now constant anxiety of the Digidestined across the world had him on edge as they all waited for the other shoe to drop.

Ever since Peter found his Crest, the Digital World was a little weirder than normal. The multiple false alarms set off by other Digidestined proved to him that everyone else felt it too. Digidestined were used to the weird, often nonsensical rules of the Digital World. Although a false alarm here and there wasn’t entirely unusual, this many in such a short amount of time was, well, alarming. Finding the reason why was what kept Izzy up at night.

Like a shadow in the corner of your eye, as soon as he felt he was closer to an answer, it turned out to be nothing. Even sending Davis and Ken on a detour during their trip to the Digital World to follow up on Peter’s nightmare of all things had so far come up empty. He wasn’t hopeful about it in the first place, but they have gotten information from weirder sources.

Despite the early warning systems that he’d built with help from Gennai and, more recently, Ken, Izzy knew that the only thing you could ever be sure of when it came to the Digital World was that it was entirely unpredictable. The systems they’d designed could only warn them of the things they knew could happen. They were mostly set up to find any Digimon that were trying to cross into the real world.

The teen sighed, he saved the last changes to his assignment, and turned his thoughts back to Peter. He decided to get Mimi to call him in the next few days, just to check up. Izzy knew all about the effects of stress, and the combination of being a Digidestined, high school student, and a nighttime hero was getting to the kid. Mimi, being Mimi, would know exactly how to help.

As he sent his assignment to the nearby printer, Izzy took the chance to look at his phone. There was the usual reminder from several of his friends to go to bed at a normal time, as well as an hours old update from Ken letting him know he and Davis had both made it home safely. The strange thing was the message from an unknown number.

'It’s Peter. Emergency. Please call.’

           

           

When Peter said he could prove everything he said about the Digital World and Digidestined was real, he probably should’ve expected Tony to ask for hard proof. Peter had evidence, such as his communicator and Digivice that both used a language clearly not of Earth, his partner’s ability to affect electronics by being in the same room, and the fact he could open a portal and show them, the same way he did with his Aunt, he could go back and forth between worlds through a computer. What Peter did not have, was facts and figures proving what, exactly, Yaamon was made of, how to get to the Digital World (was he actually traveling through the internet, or was it just a wormhole?) and readings on the composition of the Digital World.

Tony’s solution was to just go there and take all the readings himself, after running several tests on Yaamon. Peter was aghast at the idea of his partner being a lab rat and said as much.

“If you won’t let us run tests on the little guy,” Tony replied. “Then we’ll have to run them on where he comes from. Take samples, bring ‘em back to the lab, the whole shebang.”

“First of all, I don’t even know if you can go there. It’s not like I’ve ever tried to bring someone with me that wasn’t another Digidestined,” Peter explained. “Ignoring the problem of getting there, it’s like a fifty-fifty shot whether your equipment would work or not, even if you bring samples back here. The Digital World and Digimon in general tend to mess up electronics. That’s none of that even considers how dangerous the Digital World is if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Steve looked considering. “The kid’s right, Stark,” He said with a shrug. “Even if it’s just an alien planet, the locals could take an exploratory mission like that the wrong way. And if they’re all like the little guy…” Steve waved his bandaged hand, “We probably don’t want to piss them off.”

“Then what do you propose, Stevie?” Tony held his hands out to Steve, as if waiting for an offering. “We either have to test the little monster or where he comes from. We need hard evidence, numbers. That’s how you prove something. That is what we’re trying to do, right?”

Suddenly, memories of when Peter first found out what he was came to the forefront. He was so curious and kept asking Mimi for more and more information. Mimi had never been, in her words, a ‘nerd’. She was only able to give him the simple explanations, and when she finally got frustrated with his constant why, why, why, she had plopped him down in front of her laptop and called a someone who easily answered every question Peter could come up with.

“There is… one more option,” Peter said slowly. “There might be someone who has all the information you need already. At the very least, he’s one of the people who knows the most.”

“And he’ll be willing to tell us everything?” Natasha asked. “Just like that?”

Peter shrugged, unsure. “He talked to my Aunt about it when she found out. And he’s pretty into tech, so at the very least, he won’t outright say no to a talk with Tony Stark.”

“So, what, are we going to make a house call?” Clint asked.

“Considering he lives on the other side of the world and it’s the middle of the night there, that wouldn’t be a very good idea,” Peter said. “But he’s usually still awake around this time, and if you let me borrow a phone, I can text him.”

“Couldn’t you just use the communicator? I’m assuming you all have one.”

“Not if I want him to call me back. They only do text messaging.” Peter stuck a hand out. “Now whose phone can I use?”

 

 

It was nearly twenty minutes after sending the text, using FRIDAY at Tony’s insistence, that the heroes were alerted to an incoming video call. When Tony told FRIDAY to answer, a kid that looked like an older highschooler appeared, bags under his eyes.

“Peter?” His voice was simultaneously alert and exhausted.

“Uh, hey, Izzy,” Peter began. “Sorry I’m keeping you up so late.”

“Don’t be,” Izzy replied. “You said it was an emergency?”

“Okay, don’t be mad,” Peter began, before barreling on, “The Avengers figured out Yaamon was not a toy and after me and him got caught in a fire at school that I think involved a Meramon they brought me back here because I’m too weird for hospitals and they took him and locked him up but then Thor showed up and knew I was a Digidestined without me telling him and promised to help me find Yaamon and my stuff which led to what he called ‘prisoner negotiations’ with the Avengers and so I had to tell them about Digimon to get them to let Yaamon go but they didn’t believe me so I need proof and so I called you.”

There was silence on the other end for a solid moment, before, “That was… a lot. Are you and Yaamon both okay?”

“I busted up my leg,” Peter answered. “Yaamon’s alright. Just mad.”

Yaamon, who Peter had insisted join them while waiting for the call, huffed, still too angry to speak without insulting the other humans in the room.

“Good,” Izzy answered with a sigh before looking at the others around and behind Peter. “I’m assuming you’re the Avengers?”

“You would be correct,” Natasha said. “At this moment in time, we’re only asking for proof of what Peter explained to us.”

“What exactly did he tell you?”

Tony stepped forward. “He told us about the extremely unlikely, if not impossible, fact that his little friend is a data-based lifeform from a data-based world.”

“That’s correct, without getting too technical.”

“I’m a technical kind of man,” Tony answered. “Enlighten me.”

Izzy paused, considering his words. “If I sent you some of my research,” He began carefully. “What would you do with it?”

Tony blinked. “Read it? Double check the math? Usual peer review stuff.”

“And that’s it?”

“What are you getting at, kid?”

Izzy sighed and shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “We just got the Digital World put back together. You’re a smart man, probably the smartest man in the world. I’d rather not send over anything that could potentially lead to weapons against Digimon or attempted invasions.”

“You think that little of us?”

“One,” Izzy began. “You literally have taken one of us prisoner and are using him to extort information. Two, we’ve had,” Izzy paused to find the right word. “Problems, in the past, with someone who didn’t think Digimon were ‘real’.”

A frown crossed Clint’s face as a memory tried to squirm its way forward. “Are these problems why you just got the place ‘put back together’?”

“I just want some assurance you won’t attempt what the Digimon Emperor did,” Izzy said, much too calmly.

“They won’t,” Peter answered for them. “I’ve only known ‘em for a few weeks, but I’m pretty sure they’re not the indiscriminate murder and enslavement types.”

Clint’s quiet exclamation of, “The what and what types?” went mostly unheard as Izzy accepted Peter’s judgement and forwarded several files. Tony immediately pulled them up on another screen and began his deep dive.

“This is some of my research into the Digital World. I’m looking forward to your peer review, Mr. Stark.” Izzy paused. “Is Thor there too?”

“I am here, young scholar,” The prince answered as he walked forward. “What is it you wish of me?”

“How did you know Peter was a Digidestined?”

“While I am no magician nor seer, my mother has taught me the basics of sensing auras. Young Peter, and though I cannot confirm it from this distance, I’m sure you as well, are similar to the Children of Yggdrasil. The only difference is that you are Midgardian, rather than Asgardian. Thus, I concluded Young Peter was one of this world’s Children.”

Izzy looked at the man with wide eyes. “So you’re saying-“

“That other worlds have Digidestined, too.” Peter continued for him. “He also implied that he can tell because we’re-“

“Part Digital,” Izzy finished. He looked directly at the boy. “It certainly would explain some things. I’ll see if Gennai knows anything. Oh, and Peter? I’ll investigate the cause of the fire at your school. Just let me know anything you think can help.”

For the first time in days, Peter felt he could relax, even just a bit.

Chapter 14

Notes:

a smol gift
(its Mimi the gift is Mimi)

Anyone who knew May Parker would describe her as easy going or carefree. These are mostly true. Some would call her a pushover. That is not true. It’s just incredibly difficult to make May Parker truly angry. Did she get annoyed? With some concerning level of frequency. Irritated? On a near daily basis. Her nephew and his Digimon partner practically lived to test every ounce of patience in her body, and, before his death, her husband Ben wasn’t much better.

When Tony Stark had sent Harold “Happy” Hogan to find her, a man she had never met before, to inform her that her nephew was being redirected from the hospital to the compound up-state to avoid sticky questions like ‘Why is he part-spider?’, she tamped down her initial reaction to scream at him for the utter audacity of making such decisions without her input. It was a smart decision. Who knew if a regular hospital could even deal with his healing rate and metabolism.

The compound was not a problem. Peter being at the compound was not a problem. The problem came when, in the middle of her rushing to pack a weekend bag for herself and an extra bag for her nephew, Happy informed her that they would not, in fact, be driving upstate just yet.

Later, when May Parker reviewed the moment Happy stopped her in the middle of her frantic need to shove the basics into a bag and go, she would remember some of the smaller details. She would remember how Happy stared at his phone, utterly baffled at what he heard for a full minute as she dodged around the man leaning on the back of her couch before he turned to get her attention. She would remember how he calmed her down first with the news of Peter’s condition. She would remember the tone of his voice, how he was truly sorry.

Later, May Parker would consider apologizing to Happy for how she chased him out of her apartment. She might acknowledge that he was only doing his job as best he could at the time, and she really didn’t have to take out all her emotions on him. She might even say sorry for throwing that box at his head as he hurried out the front door.

When the door slammed shut behind him, May let out one last venting scream, took a deep, shuttering breath, and made a decision.

 

 

“Are you sure you don’t need me to drive?” Mimi asked for the thirteenth time since they set off on their road trip, one arm wrapped tightly around Palmon and the other holding onto the dashboard for dear life as the tires underneath them squealed on another tight curve.

When May called her in a clear panic, rambling in the usual Parker way about the fire at Peter’s school and the subsequent response from Tony Stark, Mimi told her to sit tight. She then packed as fast as she could and bought a last-minute direct flight to New York, only remembering to drop the bomb on her parents when she was securely on the plane.

They weren’t necessarily happy about it. Far from it, in fact. She would probably get an earful the second she hit the ground back home, if not worse. But they also weren’t as furious as some other parents would be. Mimi was always a do first, think later kind of girl, and they came to expect these kinds of dramatic actions over the years when she had friends to take care of across the world.

Apparently, Mimi showing up on her doorstep in the early morning hours after their phone conversation was not what May Parker expected from the teenager. But she called Mimi Tachikawa, and the girl didn’t do half measures in any part of her friendships. So May hurried the girl into her apartment, made her a snack, and explained the small bit of what she knew of the situation and her worries. That was when Mimi pulled out her Digivice, switched to the tracking screen she’d shown Peter all those years ago, and asked if May Parker had access to a car.

“I just need to focus on something other than whatever mess we’re about to drive into.” May answered. “Besides, you’re not allowed to drive in this country.”

Mimi chose to look back down at her Digivice rather than argue the point. “It looks like he’s still straight ahead of us. Pretty close now, too.” Mimi took a moment to consider her next question. “I know what you said on the phone, but what makes you think the Avengers are even doing anything with Petey? He seemed to like them.” She paused, considering. “Most of them, anyway.”

May flicked her eyes over to Mimi. “Did Peter tell you about what happened with Wanda?” Mimi waved her hand in a so-so gesture, grimacing at the reminder Peter’s anxiety ridden messages. “Well, Stark was asking me about Ken after it happened. Neither of us said a word, but I can guarantee he’s tried to look into all of,” She took one hand off the steering wheel to gesture to Mimi and Palmon as one ensemble, “this. I’m entirely sure he found something in his search, even if it wasn’t exactly the truth.”

“You’re not worried about Peter,” Mimi said, realization coming over her. “You’re worried about Yaamon.”

“Tony Stark is a lot of things, including a man of his word. He promised me he’d keep my nephew safe,” May sighed. “And that’s why I’m so worried.”

 

 

After the call with Izzy ended, after Tony kicked everyone out to pour over the research he’d been sent, and after a certain Captain noticed a certain teenage with a broken leg wincing with every other step, despite using a crutch, the group moved itself back upstairs to wait. Peter laid on a couch with his leg properly elevated, Yaamon sitting on the cushion beside him with several snacks and staring at the rest of the team. The only one who didn’t seem uncomfortable with the presence of the Digimon on the couch was Thor, who seemed to have deemed the entire matter completely settled. The silence in the room was awkward and slightly oppressive, only punctuated by the light crinkling noise from various packaging.

It was Steve who broke the silence amongst the humans. “Does he always eat that much?”

“No,” Peter said. “He usually eats a lot more.”

Steve snorted at his answer, shaking his head in disbelief.

The awkward silence returned, and with it came a nagging thought that Peter finally had time to entertain.

The next question asked by Natasha was less innocent in nature. “Who is the Digimon Emperor?”

Peter spluttered for a second as his brain caught up with what she asked. Natasha seemed to take his pause as confusion and made a move to clarify her question. “The one your friend Izzy mentioned.”

“Does it really matter?” Peter asked.

“You described this guy as the ‘indiscriminate murder and enslavement’ type,” Clint answered, almost incredulously.

“Izzy implied that he was human, as well,” She continued, undeterred. “If someone from our world can threaten creatures that even the Asgardians would think twice about crossing, I think it’s someone we deserve to know about.”

Peter sighed. That was a good point, but… “The Digimon Emperor isn’t… around, anymore.” Several pairs of eyes widened at this, and Peter was quick to correct the assumption he knew they’d made. “He’s not dead, just… not around. It’s complicated.”

Peter let his head roll back onto the top of the couch, completely relaxing his neck as he shut his eyes. Natasha wouldn’t stop pushing at this until he’d explained the entire thing. Even though he’d only known her for a few months, it wasn’t hard to pick up on the fact that she didn’t do well with loose ends or unanswered questions. The whole Digidestined concept was a truckload of questions waiting to be asked, exciting new information to be dragged out of him and picked apart by the super spies and scientists on the team alike.

He just didn’t think she’d ask anything like this so soon.

“Thor,” He said, trying to divert some of the attention off of this topic for the moment. “What are the Digidestined like on Asgard?”

Thor tilted his head, considering the question. “The Children of Yggdrasil live in seclusion in a mountain temple outside the city, with only each other and their companions, similar to Midgardian monks. They are rarely seen by the rest of the population. If a child is chosen by Yggdrasil, the oldest of them will come to collect them. On occasion, they will come to collect supplies.”

“Wait, they collect them?” Peter asked. “Do all these kids just live out in a temple on their own?”

“It seems harsh, and it did not used to be this way,” Thor rushed to clarify. “However, such a precaution grew necessary as certain families sought to remove the mark of Yggdrasil from their children by,” Thor paused, glancing down in pity at Yaamon. “Removing their companions.”

All Peter could say to that was a soft, “Oh,” as suddenly the way Thor acted around him made a lot more sense. At some point in the past, Asgard ran afoul of their own resident Digidestined in the worst way and, if he guessed right, did start some kind of mini-war. Considering what he knew a handful of the Digidestined on Earth were capable of, who knew what ones on other planets were capable of.

“Did you used to be a Digidestined?” Yaamon asked, causing Peter to flail in embarrassment next to him.

“Yaamon, you cannot just ask that!” Peter’s brain was finally able to land on as he squished his best friend’s cheeks in punishment. “Do you ever think before you speak?”

“Buh Pe’ey!” Yaamon said. “I jus’ t’ought id wou’d be coo’ if T’or was like us!”

Peter was about to press into Yaamon the importance of considering how questions like that could make others feel when a booming laugh came from the Prince of Asgard, throwing off his lecture before it started.

“There is no cause for concern, Young Parker,” Thor said. “To answer your question, I was never a Child of Yggdrasil. Although I did know a boy who was chosen quite well. His partner was taken from him when we were both still quite young.” Thor grimaced at the memory. “Loki was never quite the same, after that.”

When only silence followed his last statement, Thor looked around at his companions and found shocked stares directed at him from the room’s other occupants. “Was it something I said?”

 

 

For a compound built by a superhero and housing a team of them, the security leading up to the front driveway was suspiciously lax. Mimi might not be a nerd like Peter or Izzy, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have common sense when it came to things like this. She knew that the base of a team of superheroes, one that included a really rich inventor, should have a world class security system that would see Mrs. Parker’s beat up old sedan coming from miles away. The fact that they were able to drive up and park right outside the front door without a hitch set off an alarm bell in the back of Mimi’s head.

The trio clambered out of the car, staring at the sleek door in front of them. Mimi looked around, taking note of the camera above the door following their walk inside. So, clearly someone had seen them enter. The question was, why didn’t they seem to care?

Digivice in hand, Mimi took note of the direction the little red arrow that represented Peter (or, at least, his Digivice) was pointing and began to lead Mrs. Parker through the sleek halls. After two turns and a set of stairs, Palmon perked up, signaling to the others that Yaamon was up ahead. It only took another few seconds of power walking for the humans to hear voices from the room at the end of the hall, a booming laugh resonating down the hallway that Mimi could feel to her bones.

She couldn’t make out what it was they were talking about, exactly, but she did hear Peter and Yaamon’s voices intermingling with the rest. She also knew that this was neither an interrogation room nor an infirmary, which meant Peter must have told them and there was definitely a story there. Just before she could take a peek in the room to see what the situation was now, Mrs. Parker rushed past her and enveloped Peter and Yaamon in a soul crushing hug.

           

 

“Aunt May?” Peter’s voice was muffled by his Aunt’s shoulder. She took one deep, calming breath, and pulled away from him to take stock of her nephew.

The only visible injury was his leg, but Peter’s healing had been better ever since the bite. It wouldn’t take too long for the cast to come off, depending on what kind of break it was. She could see him off of crutches and on his feet in a couple weeks at the very worst, days at best. Seeing him and Yaamon sitting freely, talking openly with the Avengers, was a bigger cause of concern for her. She knew Peter hadn’t been ready to share that secret, so something drastic must have happened. Not to mention…

“Where’s Stark?”

“He’s down in the lab,” Peter answered, just a hint of bite in his tone. “Trying to prove Digimon aren’t an impossibility and I’m not insane.”

Out of the corner of her eye, May could see several of the Avengers wince at his response, but none of them jumped to make a claim against it. She grit her teeth and stood. “You,” She said, pointing towards someone at random. She decided to ignore that she’d picked Captain America of all people and continued with her demands. “You’re taking me to Stark. Me and him need to have a little talk.”

“Ma’am, I don’t think-“

“I don’t need you to think, Captain,” May said. “I need you to take me to Stark.”

When Steve opened his mouth to protest again, then thought better of it after receiving a withering glare from Natasha and a subtle head shake from Clint and a frantic head shake from Peter. He looked back at May Parker, then nodded, replied, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll take you to Stark.”  

“That was the scariest thing I think I’ve ever seen,” Clint said as soon as they left the room.

“I’ve never seen her that angry.” Peter added.

“She’s been really worried about you and Yaamon since I got here,” Mimi said. “But most of the anger is directed towards Mr. Stark.”

“Why are you here?” Peter asked. “Not that I’m not happy to see you.”

“Well, we thought you guys might be in trouble, so I flew in.” Mimi answered. She tossed a look around at the awkward atmosphere in the room. “You’re not actually in trouble, right?”

“Not anymore,” Peter said. “At least, I don’t think so. I got Izzy to help me out.”

Mimi put her hand on her chest in faux offence. “And not moi?” She said with a gasp.

Peter rolled his eyes. “Oh, do you also have scientific data on the Digital World just sitting around waiting to be peer reviewed by Tony Stark himself?”

Mimi stuck her tongue out and mouther ‘peer reviewed’ to herself, miming a gagging motion to Palmon, who responded with a giggle. “Gross, and no. Oh, but I do have a really cute lab coat I’ve been meaning to send you. It’s got chemistry thingies embroidered on it.” She squeezed herself in between Thor and Peter, careful not to jostle his leg, and tossed some of the leftover food she had to move out of her way to Palmon, who gratefully began sharing with Yaamon. “Are y’all devoid of pens in this place? Why has no one signed your cast yet?”

“Okay, who are you?” Clint asked.

“I’m Mimi Tachikawa,” The older teen answered, sticking her hand out in greeting. “Fashionista, gardening expert, and Digidestined! Not in that order.”

Notes:

So I made a tumblr for this fic for lore dumps/questions and to probably post smaller fics within this universe (and maybe some unrelated ones). It can be found here.

Chapter 15

“Ma’am-“

“Look, Captain,” May said, interrupting Steve as she stopped them both in their tracks. “I understand this is a hell of a time to be formally introduced, but,” she shrugged. “My name is May Parker. I’m Peter’s aunt. You can call me May, you can call me Mrs. Parker. I’ll even take Aunt May. Please, just stop calling me ma’am.”

Steve didn’t realize he’d stuck out a hand for her to shake until after she’d grabbed it. “Steve Rogers,” He offered, more as a symbolic gesture than anything. Most Americans could pick him out of a lineup. “Call me Steve. Not Captain.”

“Okay, Steve.” The smile she offered was a start. She was still angry, but at least less of it was directed at him now. “What were you going to tell me?”

“Well, ma- May,” Steve began, stuttering slightly over her name due to well ingrained manners. “The lab where Tony’s working is right up ahead, but he usually locks the door when he wants to focus like this. I wanted to suggest we talk to FRIDAY before trying to go in.”

“Mr. Stark asked me to keep the rest of the team members out of the area while he works,” FRIDAY informed them without further prompting. Steve mentally relaxed. That means he had some time to take May back upstairs and cool her off before she got to Tony. At least, he thought he did before FRIDAY decided on a loophole to the situation. “However,” the AI continued. “I was not explicitly told to keep non-members out of the room.”

Only adding to the Captain’s confusion was May Parker’s reaction. The woman looked up at the ceiling and frowned, her eyes showing clear pity at the response. “Oh, sweetie,” May said before sighing, then pat the wall next to her. “I’ll yell at him for both of us. Just make sure you don’t stay mad, alright?”

“Second door on your right, Mrs. Parker,” FRIDAY said. Steve thought her voice sounded slightly more cheerful than before, which wasn’t possible. She was programmed specifically not to emote.

May began to walk towards the door, then paused with a glance back. “If someone just so happened to follow me inside while the door was open,” May said, waving Steve forward. “Well, neither of us could help that, could we?”

 

 

“The more of you I meet, the more trouble I have believing you guys could beat me in an arm-wrestling contest, let alone beat an Asgardian in an actual battle,” Clint said to Mimi, who was now doodling on Peter’s cast with a borrowed Sharpie.

Mimi hummed at that. “Well, it would be kind of unfair. Yaamon doesn’t have arms.” She paused to look at the Digimon, as if considering his lack of appendages for the first time. “Or legs,” She concluded.­

Peter scowled at the older man across the room. “You’d fight a ‘mon with no arms or legs? That’s pretty messed up.” He struggled to keep his face straight at the affronted face he received. “At least let his body grow in first.” He couldn’t keep the smile off his face when he heard Mimi snort hard beside him.

Natasha hadn’t stopped staring at the girl now occupying the couch with Peter since she walked through the door to the living area. Having determined she couldn’t pick the situation apart like a puzzle without asking a few questions, she decided to go with the obvious first. “How did you even get inside the building?”

Mimi looked at the spy with a raised eyebrow. “The front door,” She answered like it was obvious.

“That should be impossible,” Natasha countered. “FRIDAY is supposed to alert us to someone entering the perimeter, and if they tried to walk through the entrance without clearance, she would’ve locked down the entire compound.”

Mimi looked at Peter in confusion. “Is Friday the head security guard or something?”

“FRIDAY is Mr. Stark’s AI,” Peter clarified. “She’s in charge of a lot of stuff in the Compound, including the security. There’s speakers and mics in most rooms that us talk with her, and cameras so she can see us. Just talk kind of up if you want to say hi.”

As he explained this, Peter couldn’t help but wonder himself how Mimi had gotten in without any trouble.

Normally, whenever someone arrived at the compound that didn’t have regular access, like Mimi and his Aunt May, FRIDAY would alert those inside so someone who did could let them inside. But maybe Tony had given his Aunt access (or at the very least temporary access) because of Peter’s injury. Mimi could’ve accidentally piggybacked on that access.

Or FRIDAY decided to let her in.

Mimi perked up at the idea of someone else to greet, looking straight up with a beaming smile and waving excitedly. “It’s nice to meet you FRIDAY! Thanks for letting us in to check up on Petey.”

“It was no trouble, Miss Tachikawa,” FRIDAY responded, an undertone of excitement in her voice when as the AI said Mimi’s name. There was a pause, and soft whirring before she continued, sounding apprehensive. “Would you be willing to verify some verbal reports on the Digital World that Peter and Yaamon have provided?”

Natasha blinked, confusion showing on her face for a few seconds before she wiped it away.

“Of course! I bet he hasn’t told you about the time he tried to teach all the baby Digimon duck-duck-goose.” Mimi leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered her voice just a tad, “There’s video.”

“You still have that?!”

 

Carbon-based life dominates the Earth. Scientists have previously theorized about the possibility of alien planets with silicon-based life forms. Such a possibility has inspired science fiction of all kinds, and some circles were disappointed to find that the Chitauri were also carbon-based, as anything else would solve decades old debates.

What both silicon and carbon have in common, at the most fundamental level, is the fact that both are physical, tangible matter. The abstract concept of data, as presented in the carefully catalogued research of the teenager Tony just received an email with aggressively intense encryption from, was not.

This was the first time Tony faced off with what seemed like an actual impossibility.

Another world – another dimension – parallel and intertwined with their own. A lifeform that was non-carbon based, non-matter based and nearly two hundred kids around the world that were wrapped up in a conspiracy to turn them into, effectively, child soldiers.

Tony immediately started pouring over the documents once they’d been sent, but he was still having trouble working through it all. The oldest felt like they were written by an elementary schooler with the way everything was named, Digi-this and Digi-that.

The science itself wasn’t hard to follow for someone like Tony Stark. The issue lied in the contents itself, which was his only source on the matter aside from anecdotes from teens and children. The measurements were primarily taken by Koushiro ‘Izzy’ Izumi, who had somehow determined how to measure the level, type, and flow of data in a supposedly entirely digital world, and apply that logic to the study of the world itself. Data types defined in the analysis were familiar terms, like Vaccine and Virus, but were instead used as classifications of the inhabitants. The conclusions drawn in different entries swung wildly in terms of believability, from the idea that willpower and feelings could cause spontaneous evolution to the existence of multiple monsters with power to rival the Hulk all living in the same city.

Tony had asked for the evidence and evidence he’d been given, quality non-withstanding.

Some parts had clearly been censored, despite Peter’s reassurances to the older teen. A name or two here, expanded details there, a few hastily written notes that Tony knew were meant to be something like an incident report, all written by children, compiled by children, for other children to read, learn, and use.

Peter liked to dress in spandex and stop petty thieves after school and on the weekends, but he was still a kid. The adults in his life recognized he’d keep doing those things on his own, no matter how stupid that is, and so his Aunt made rules and Tony made a childproof Spidey-suit, complete with GPS tracking and S.O.S. functions. Now he was wondering if any of the electronics placed in the suit ever actually worked, thanks to Peter’s little friend.

Peter also had the advantage of super strength, flexibility, and durability from the spider bite, which none of these children had. Tony reminded himself that Peter didn’t have those either when he’d first met Yaamon.

They expected him to believe a world filled with monsters as powerful as described requires average children under ten to number amongst its protectors?

“Stark!”  

The man whirled around from the screen he’d been studying to see the door he’d specifically asked to keep locked open and the room with two new occupants. May Parker stood, arms crossed and eyes narrowed, while Rogers hung a few feet behind. Tony sympathized with the man, having met Mrs. Parker more than once.

Tony looked to where he knew FRIDAY’s cameras were. “I thought I told you to keep everyone out.”

“Incorrect, Boss,” FRIDAY replied cheerily. Tony squinted. He didn’t program her with that much vocal intonation. “I was told to keep members of the team out.”

“Cheeky shit,” Tony muttered before turning his attention back to May. “Do I even want to know how you got in the building?”

“I walked in the front door. Am I allowed to know why you called my nephew crazy?”

“I never called him crazy,” Tony denied quickly. “It’s just that what he’s saying isn’t improbable, it’s impossible. Data can’t be physical, let alone alive.”

May clicked her tongue. “I’ve known Yaamon longer than you. Like his personality a bit more than yours, too. It doesn’t really matter what he’s made of, but he’s a living being.”

“I guess we all know why you were so calm about raising a teenage superhero now.” Tony snorted. “And how can you say it doesn’t matter? The entire premise of their relationship is based around the idea of a Digital World, of digital beings presented as threats to fight and defend against. Oh, and while we’re on that, why is it only kids that are pulled into this mess? Weren’t you ever just the least bit suspicious?”

“Of course I was!” May hissed back. “Who wouldn’t be? You suddenly find out the kid you’re raising has a toy who’s alive and has been living in your house for a year without you noticing, then he tells you he and a bunch of other kids fight monsters when you thought he was gardening! But that little monster is one of the kindest, most sincere beings I’ve ever met, and my husband will be rolling in his grave if I stand here and let you believe anything less for even a second.”

The silence between them was tense and palpable. Finally, Rogers took a tentative step forward to cut in to the argument. “We’re suspicious because we’re worried. But, the more I speak with them both and the more I hear from others about Yaamon, the less worried I am for Peter.” He turned his eyes to his fellow Avenger. “It’s not like the impossible hasn’t happened before, Tony.”

Tony was used to readjusting his world view in face of the impossible happening. Aliens had always been a possibility in his mind, being the man of science he was, but the belief was more in the line of ‘finding bacteria in ice on Mars’ and less ‘fighting off an invading force attacking New York through a wormhole’. Chilling out with the Norse god of thunder after finding out Asgard was just another planet and Thor a long-lived alien, that was a little less likely, but Tony could adapt. Kid with spider powers? Captain America primed the world for the enhanced in World War II, it just took a bit for everyone else to catch up.

“How about a ‘trust but verify’ stance?” Tony asked, bending a little. “Some of the terms in this document are made up and undefined. I’ll get the kid and have him walk me through it instead of winging it.”

May Parker smiled at him in relief. Tony ignored it as best he could, along with the gleam in Rogers’ eyes when he conceded just that little bit.

“FRI, can you ask the kid to come down here?”

“Sure thing, Bo-Boss, su- thing, sure thing – thing – thing, Bo-“

Everyone winced at the off-pitched, stuttering voice. “Cut speakers in the lab. Switch to text until I can switch those out.”

The response this time was a buzzing, like white noise when a TV signal was cut, pitched up and down at random until it abruptly cut off. Wincing, Tony looked behind him to see his screens rapidly displaying random characters he recognized from studying the Digivice earlier before they also shut off.

The three occupants of the room looked at each other in worry and quickly made for the door.

 

 

While asking Mimi to describe a particular Digimon in detail, FRIDAY’s speech shifted very suddenly to incomprehensible static, and then cut off entirely.

“You there, FRIDAY?” Peter asked, a pit growing in his stomach.

Clint’s eyes immediately honed in on the two Digimon in the room with some suspicion. “D’you think having two of them here is messing with the electronics on a wider scale?”

“No, that’s not really something that happens,” Peter answered, still enthralled by the static. “I’ve never seen anything like this before…”

“I have,” Mimi said, frowning. “The last time I saw it like this was in Odaiba. It means a Digimon is nearby.”

“So it is because those two are here?”

“No,” Palmon chimed in. She stood up when Mimi did, leaving Yaamon alone with the rest of the food. “Digimon with partners don’t affect electronics as much as other Digimon do. When this happens it means Digimon who aren’t usually meant to interact with this world are either coming through or already here.”

The pair had stepped over to a window during Palmon’s short explanation. The plant Digimon let out a soft “Huh.” She tilted her head, and action mimicked by her partner, as they both tried to puzzle out why there was a new, and slightly foggier, landscape. Peter followed their gaze and didn’t bother to hold in a gasp at the sight.  

“This is a new one,” Mimi said, turning around to face the room. “Welcome to the Digital World, I guess?”

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of To Crawl Along a Spider's Web