Battle at the Bugle

Peter stood there defiantly but did nothing, confident that Stark and his friends were hesitant to fire on a building full of people. J. Jonah would be an exception, but there was too much collateral around him to even make his shot worth it. Peter was using the spare time to think about his situation and how to fight his way out of it. The one factor that gave him pause was Vision, who was too powerful for Peter to take on. What the three men before him had power and muscle, which lead Peter to conclude that speed was the only advantage he had on them. He would have to move fast and use his speed to get the best of his opponents. Peter used his thumb to activate a new feature on his web shooters; it was new webbing he had been working on in Reed's labs but never had a chance to test it out, but there no time like the present. He used both hands and fired both hands at the massive window which cover his side of the window in thick stretched webbing. Seconds after hitting the window, the webbing constricted. The purpose of this webbing was to surround an opponent and squeeze them into submission, but on a window the pane of glass instead shattered outwards and projected a large explosion of glass at the three men floating in front of it. The moment the glass had exploded, Peter sprung into action. He went into a dead run and leaped out the window, using the distraction to take out his first target. Peter delivered a devastating drop kick to the Vision, propelling him with great force into the building across the street. Peter had no idea how to defend himself against Vision, so it seemed logical to take him out first, hoping to have enough time to take out Stark and Rhodes or even escape before he could come back into the fight. Right after taking out Vision, Peter tossed a web line at Stark, and used Iron man as leverage to swing off of him and attack War Machine. But Rhodes was already back in the fight as he jetted out of the way, and Peter missed him by seconds. He used the momentum from his swing off of Stark to propel himself on top of the Bugle building. One there, the two men still there had both their hands pointed at Peter, ready to fire.

"Seriously?" Peter called out, "You want to risk possibly hitting innocent civilians when you miss?"

"I suppose not," Stark said, lowering his hand. "But you're coming with us, even if I have to drag you back to Fury kicking and screaming."

"Man, and I thought I talked to much." Peter said, as he fired another round of webbing, this time covering Stark's entire head in thick, gucky webbing that stuck to Stark's helmet.

War Machine responded by flying at Peter and swing at him with a hard fist. Rhodes had expected Peter to step out of the way, but he didn't. Peter had used his speed but now it was time to exhibit some of the strength he had shown to the team in Reed's gym a few days ago. Peter caught Rhodes's punch with an open hand, using his strength to stop the punch and hold his fist there in place.

"Whoa," Rhodes said, looking back at Peter. "What did you eat for breakfast?"

"I was unable to finish my breakfast," Peter said as he started to close his hand, which resulted in the metal in War Machine's hand crunching between his fingers. "And that makes me very grumpy."

Rather than break every bone in Rhodes's hand, Peter instead ripped off the metal cover his hand and held it in front of Rhodes to let him watch him break the rest of it with ease. He dropped the broken hand to the ground, as it was nothing more than a very expensive paper weight now.

"Tony!" Rhodes called back, "Peter is a little stronger than we first assumed."

"You have no idea." Peter responded as he then made another move. He used his super strength to grab the power supply of Rhodes's armor and ripped the arc reactor right out of his chest. Once the reactor was out of his chest, War Machine was out of the fight, and Peter pushed him to the ground and used his webbing to immobilize him. "Stick around, Rhody."

Just as Peter was turning his attention away from War Machine, he was hit in the chest by a blast that came from Stark. Angered by the damage he was causing, Tony no longer cared about those around and fired his hand beams at Peter without hesitation and knocked the kid off his feet.

"No more playing around, Parker." Tony said as he flew down to the roof. "You're coming with me."

Peter was still stunned by the blast, trying to get back to his feet as Ironman jetted in and knocked Peter off his feet with a solid punch that would have knocked a few teeth out of mortal men. Before Peter fell to the ground, Stark grabbed him the young webslinger's arm and kept him upright so he could hit him again. He knocked the wind out of Peter by tossing another hard punch into his stomach, which caused Peter to gasp loudly as he had never taken a punch that hard before. It was one thing to get knocked about by a man he was fighting, but Stark's armor was like the perfect set of brass knuckles and ever hit hurt worse than the one that came before it. Stark was furious as he kept hitting Peter with one punch after another, to the point where Peter was a bloody mess. Stark still had a hold of Peter as he raised his right arm high above his head, getting ready to knock Peter out and end things.

"Say good night, Gracie." Tony whispered.

"Stark!" the Vision roared as he returned to the fight, "Stop!"

Stark swung down at Peter as hard as he could, but his fist stopped just short of Peters face. It stood there, less than a few inches from the young man's head and Stark stood there like a statue, as if he was trying to emphasize his strength in the current situation.

"Thank you," Vision said as he floated over, "He's beaten, Mr. Stark. There's no need to hurt the young man anymore."

"It's not me," Stark replied, "I can't move."

The Vision looked over at Peter, "Is this your doing?"

"No," a voice called out. "That would be my doing."

The Vision looked up and there was another man floating above the Daily Bugle. Vision had only read about this man in archives, but upon seeing him it was clear as day who was flying amongst them. The burgundy suit, the purple cape and the helmet were all unmistakable. It was Eric Magnus: the renegade mutant known to the world as Magneto.

"Three against one," Eric called from above as he floated closer. "Doesn't seem like a fair fight in my books."

"This isn't your fight, Magnus!" Tony called out.

"Oh I disagree," Magneto said as he landed on the roof of the building to join them all. He had a look on his face that anyone could read as anger. "You made this my fight the moment you attacked my friend and his students. Did you honestly think I would stand by and let that kind of aggression towards my people go without a response?"

"Let him go," The Vision order, as the jewel in his head glowed to indicate that he was about to fire at him.

"No," Eric replied, "I'm not done with them yet."

Before Vision could respond, he was attacked from behind by War Machine, who was also under the control of Magneto. He grabbed Vision from behind and put him into a full nelson, restraining him. Vision could have easily fought back but he didn't, afraid that he might cause harm to Rhodes who was not in control of the suit. Eric then took control of Stark and his suit, as Peter was released from his grip. Peter fell to the ground as he was still conscious, but barely. He watched as Magneto forced Tony's armored suit to walk over where Rhodes was holding Vision and start to punch The Vision as hard as he had been punching Peter just earlier. After several hard punches from Iron Man, Peter grabbed Magneto's arm which caused the Iron Man to stop.

"Please stop," Peter begged, panting and gasping for air. "Don't kill him."

"Mr. Parker," Eric replied as he grabbed Peter's arm to help the young man to his feet. "I am touched by the compassion you have, even for your enemy. You remind me of an old friend."

"Vision wasn't trying to hurt me," Peter corrected him. "He even tried to stop Stark. You saw it."

Eric paused for a moment then gave a small grin. "That is true."

At that moment, War Machine released Vision who fell to the ground as hard as Peter had earlier.

Eric's small smile then turned to a look of pure rage. "That doesn't let these two off the hook, however."

Magneto raised a hand and with it both suits of armor raised into the air a few feet, and as he started to close his fingers both men could be heard screaming as the suits had begun to constrict, making them very uncomfortable for the two men inside them. The Vision started to struggle to his feet as he wanted to stop their suffering.

"Let them go!" a voice roared at him.

Eric turned to his left to see a familiar face. "Kitty! I can honestly say it's nice to see you. So glad to see you were not taken by the Sentinels."

"Don't kill them!" Kitty called out, "You know the Professor wouldn't approve!"

"Perhaps," Eric conceded, "but I stopped worrying about what he thought a very long time ago."

"Then do it for her," Peter said, "Do if for the mutants. Don't give them another excuse to use to justify their actions."

Eric couldn't help but smile again, as he agreed with Peter's logic. "Kitty, please take Mr. Parker and get him out of here."

Before Vision could respond to that, Magneto lowered Stark and Rhodes to the ground and forced them to each grab one of Vision's arms, which was more than enough to restrain Vision and keep him in place.

"I'll keep these three here until you've had plenty of time to get away." Eric said, before he looked back at Vision. "If you do not resist, I will not kill your friends and release them to your custody. Do you accept my terms?"

"I do," Vision replied without hesitation.

"Good lad," Magneto said, looking back at Kitty and Peter. "Get going you two, I'm not going to stay here forever."

"Don't kill them," Peter insisted.

"My dear boy," Eric said, his ego slightly bruised, "Despite what the world thinks of me, I am a man of my word. They will be released once you've been given sufficient time to escape. Now chop chop."

Kitty took hold of Peter and used her power to phase them through the roof to the floor below them. Eric knew that she would faze all the way down to the first floor and believed that an additional ten minutes would be sufficient. Not like these three were going anywhere anytime soon.

"What are you doing here?" Vision finally asked.

"Funny you should ask," Eric said as he walked closer to Vision. "I came here to extract my revenge for what you did to my fellow mutants."

"How did you know we'd be here?" Vision inquired.

"I didn't," Eric answered, "I just happened to be flying by, on my way to Stark's hideous tower. I was going to rip the building out of the ground and toss it and everyone that was in it into the ocean, payback for Stark's unwarranted attack on Charles and his students."

"And now?" Vision asked, curious to learn what Eric planned to do next.

"Well, I don't need to do that now." Eric conceded, gesturing to Tony beside him. "I've got my hands on the man responsible for the attack. I can extract my revenge here instead, which I assure you will be just as gratifying."

Without notice, Eric waved a finger and suddenly Iron man punched himself in the face. Stark then continued to himself over and over again, unable to control his own actions. After a few more hits, Eric began to become bored and he kicked things up a notch, flicking his wrist which resulted in a different action. The action caused Ironman's let to twist in an awkward direction, which Stark's leg was unable to match as the bone in his leg snapped. The crack from the fracture echoed off the roof of the Daily Bugle, as did Stark's scream right after it as he was agonizing pain.

"Stop that!" Vision called out. "We had a deal!"

"We do have a deal," Eric said, looking back at Vision. "I said that I wouldn't kill them. He'll live."

"Stop hurting them or the deal's off." Vision demanded.

"Alright," Eric said as he released Stark, who then fell to the ground with a mighty thud. He even released Rhodes from his power as well. "See to your friend, and do not pursue Parker and Kitty. Since I have you here, I'd like you to pass along a message to Nick Fury. Inform the director that if I hear of any more mutants being taken by Shield, I'll tear his helli-carrier into a million pieces and kill everyone on board. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," Vision replied, "I will relay your threat to Director Fury."

"Marvelous," Magneto said as he started to float back into the sky. "Leave the mutants alone, because I can assure you that none of you want to see me when I'm angry."

Vision watched for a moment as Magneto flew away just to make sure he wasn't going to come back while Rhodes ejected from his armor, happy to be out of it as some parts were becoming a bit uncomfortable.

"Holy Crap," Rhodes said, gasping. "Did that just happen?"

"Indeed it did," Vision said, tapping a small console on his forearm. "Coulson, this is Vision, please respond."

"This is Coulson," A voice replied, "We have a visual on Parker and the mutant."

"Do not engage," Vision ordered, "We need your help. You are needed on the roof of the Daily Bugle."

"What's going on?" Coulson asked.

"Mr. Stark is in dire need of medical attention." Vision informed the agent, "Break pursuit; that is not a request."

"We're on our way." Coulson replied.