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chapter sixteen
THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP
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THOUGH LENA HAD RESTED for hours at Paul's home in Germany, it doesn't stop her from being absolutely exhausted. She slumps in a chair across from Peter with her feet in his lap, eyelids drooping. Every muscle of hers hurts. Her entire body pulses with an ache that's bone-deep, bruises dotting not only her skin but also places she can't see. Every step she's taken has sent a sharp pain up her right leg from kicking a concrete post that she'd thought was Beck. She can feel the stitches in her back stretching with every movement.

But the worst thing isn't the pain. No, even though it's terrible, it's part of the job as a superhero— a piece of her has gotten used to it. The worst thing is that her mind won't let her relax even as she continues to doze off. As soon as she begins to lose consciousness, a spark of fear will jolt her awake once more. A seed of doubt takes root in her brain. She'll wonder if anything around her is real at all. Is she really safe from harm? Is she really this close to Peter? Is Happy Hogan really sitting at the front of the jet, or is this just another trick?

That very fact causes her to snap awake once again. She blinks, trying to clear her blurry vision. Peter's eyes flicker to her when she moves to rub her tired eyes. It also hurts to look at him and the dried cut near his eye. He looks like a trainwreck even with his accelerated healing; Beck truly had done a number on him.

"Alright," Happy sighs. He stands from the pilot's seat and walks the few steps it takes to reach them, smoothing his hands down the front of his suit. "What's the game plan? Cuz we've been hovering over this field for, like, fifteen minutes."

"The plan is to wait for Graham," Peter replies. It warms Lena's heart to hear that, especially given the fight they've been in for the past day.

"Okay, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we don't have any way of contacting him, neither of you knows where he is, and with where I had to pick you up from, Peter, he could be across a border—"

"We're not leaving without Graham," Peter interrupts. The tone of his voice suggests that the decision is final. It's not one Lena has heard him use often, but to disobey it would be like kicking a puppy.

She glances at him. "Where did Happy find you?"

"The Netherlands."

"How—?"

"Long story."

Happy waits for the two of them to finish, then holds his hands up in surrender. "Fine. We'll wait for fifteen more minutes, but any more time and we're risking everything."

She closes her eyes in exasperation at their situation. Waiting here like sitting ducks sucks, but Peter is right. She'll be damned if they do anything without her best friend. There's no way she's giving up on Graham that easily. If the roles were reversed and it had been her out of action, Graham wouldn't stop looking until he found her, even if he had to do what Happy said and search across Europe. If they leave and it turns out that he'd been trying to find them, she'll never forgive herself.

Lena's brows furrow, dread coiling in her stomach. What would it be like to be Graham right now? Alone, his phone back in Prague, unsure of what to do or where his friends are? To feel like he'll never get out of this forest—

Wait, what?

As soon as confusion springs into her mind, her head starts to hurt. Panic causes her heart to race. Her fingers curl around the arms of her seat, perplexity swirling as snippets of images flash behind her closed eyelids. Dirt. Towering trees in every direction. The sunlight peeking through the tops, casting shadows everywhere, but they're useless, a mere taunt. Fears that aren't her own begin to plague her. Will anyone hear this? What if my friends are dead?

Lena's eyes flash open, shock blasting through her so intensely that she almost tumbles out of her seat as she realizes what's happening. She manages to catch herself just before she falls, chest heaving with rapid breaths.

"Lee?" Peter asks. "What's wrong?"

"Graham," she chokes out through labored breathing. "Graham. It's Graham— h–he's trying to talk to me in the only way he can."

Peter's face falls slack with relief, his brown eyes regaining some of the hope that he'd lost. "He's alive."

Lena nods, trying to smile, but it turns into more of a wince due to the pain slicing through her head. Now she knows why it's happening; it's the result of her resisting Graham's invasion of her consciousness. Not only is it painful for her, but his images aren't as clear.

"I don't understand," Happy says. "Is he telepathic? Because that's not in the file Tony had on him, and I really don't like surprises."

Lena tunes them out as Peter tries to explain Graham's powers. She closes her eyes again, and this time, lets him in. Her friend's mind feels like a blanket as it washes over her own. He's using his own fears to give her clues of his whereabouts. The same images of trees appear again, but this time, it's almost like she's looking through his eyes. Then it turns into his hands— dark skin coated in blood and dirt. Then a desert, scorching in its intense heat and miles of sand that offer no places to melt into the shadows.

Her heart aches. That last part must have been one of his illusions. Oh, Graham...

"He's in a forest," Lena reports, struggling to keep her mind open as she speaks. "It doesn't really help, but we know he's alive."

"Can't he jump here?" Happy asks. "The teleportation thing?"

"He has to have been there before," Peter explains. "He can't just shadow travel to somewhere he's never seen."

"Wait," Lena says, holding up a finger to keep the two from talking. "I have an idea."

What if she could help Graham get here without them needing to find him? As far as they know, he just needs to be familiar with a place's layout in order to end up there. What if she could get him to see it by translating her surroundings into fears?

She opens her eyes and glances around the jet. It's too light to bring him in here.

"Here, help me," she tells Peter, reaching over to slide the shade over the window beside them. Peter does the same to the others in the jet while Happy pulls the curtain between the pilot's chair and the rest of the plane. In moments, they're nearly smothered in darkness.

Lena inhales a deep breath and examines her surroundings as closely as she can. Then she closes her eyes again and focuses on what she'd seen, allowing a genuine fear to flicker through her mind: What if you never get here?

At first, nothing happens. She can still feel Graham's consciousness, so she can only assume that he'd read her terror. The image of the jet stays locked in her mind. She tries to visualize it as if her eyes are open, focusing so hard she feels her head begin to ache again.

Peter's gasp of, "Woah!" makes her eyes snap open. A second passes. Then a dark swirl appears near the rear of the jet's interior, making Lena's heart leap in excitement before it flickers out. The three of them wait with bated breath as it appears again and again, growing in size and becoming more tangible each time. Peter's hands curl into fists at his sides. He seems to be murmuring encouragements under his breath.

A hand appears before blinking out of existence. Then an outline of a body. And then Graham bursts from the cluster of shadows, nearly collapsing if Lena and Peter hadn't rushed forward to catch him as soon as he'd appeared.

Supporting over six feet of pure muscle isn't easy, but Lena ignores all of her bodily pains and focuses on the joy threatening to bring tears to her eyes. Graham is alive. She's hugging him, so glad to see him that she doesn't realize how forceful she's being until he makes a small squeak of discontent.

She looks up into his face. His dark skin is smudged with dirt and dried blood. There's a shallow cut along his cheek and what looks like minor burn marks in other places on his skin, making her wonder how that could have happened. His black suit is ripped in places, exposing his skin beneath it. His mask is torn and hangs on by a thread. She takes it off and tosses it to the side.

"I made it?" he asks, sluggishly blinking his eyes open to glance between Lena and Peter.

She smiles so big her face could nearly split in two. "Yeah. I'm so proud of you."

"I could take another five-year nap."

Lena rolls her eyes.

Peter supports most of Graham's weight, all of the contempt from before gone as he also hugs him tightly. "I'm so sorry, man. You were right. We should never have trusted Beck, and—"

"Hey. We both said some shitty things, right? I'm sorry, too." Graham closes his eyes. "But I will admit that I could gloat about you saying that I was right."

Then he passes out. Literally— one second he'd been fully conscious, and the next, Peter is setting him onto a nearby chair to let him sleep. All of the concentration it had taken to shadow travel must have knocked him out.

"Okay," Peter says, clapping his hands together as he and Lena face a bewildered Happy. "We can't call our friends because Beck's tracking their phones. Uh... give me your phone."

"M–My cell phone?" Happy questions, reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Here."

Peter takes it and turns it on. "What's your password?"

"Password."

"No, what is your password?"

"It's a word. The word. Spelled out. 'Password.'"

"You're the Head of Security and your password is 'password'?"

"I don't feel good about it, either."

"Oh my God," Lena mumbles with a hand to her face.

Once Peter unlocks Happy's phone, he quickly goes to the App Store and downloads Instagram. Lena can safely say that she hasn't touched her account since she'd returned from the snap. It's too weird seeing some of her friends out of college— a few are even married.

He logs on and heads to Flash's account — his username is SpideyNo1Fan — and sees that he's on a live right now.

"'Ello, Governor! Cup of tea for you?" Flash exclaims from the stream of the video in a horrible English accent. "I'm gonna be in London soo—"

"They're in London," Peter informs Happy.

"London? Okay." Happy scrambles toward the front of the jet.

"Yeah — I need a suit!"

The Head of Security points to Peter with a knowing smirk. Reaching above him, he presses a button on the ceiling. Something makes a whirring sound from behind them. Lena spins around to see the back wall opening to reveal a miniature lab. As the lights turn on, revealing a sleek, silver interior, she huffs an amazed laugh and rushes inside. There are enough screens to make her mind boggle. A tube-like capsule lines the left side of the space, opening with a hiss to reveal biometric scanners.

Lena shares a glance with Peter. She notices a tiny gleam of excitement in his eyes that mimics the one in hers— a sight so refreshing to see after the horrors they've gone through that it makes her grin. Together, they each press a hand on the scanners. Green lights indicate that their prints have been accepted.

"Okay, um," Peter begins nervously, "bring up everything you have on Spider-Man, Havoc, and Specter."

Within the separate sections of the capsule, small, holographic images of suit designs appear. Lena notices the Iron Spider costume on Peter's side along with a few others. On her end is a plethora of options. Most are similar in appearance but with small changes to the accents, some with various wig options as well. And in the empty spot for Graham are a few selections for his suit. It warms her heart; Tony hadn't known Graham very well, but had thought to make him some designs, anyway. And judging from the state of his store-bought suit, he's going to need them.

"Open that," Peter says, reaching forward and expanding the menu bar. He swipes past several options for tools, muttering, "No, no, no..."

Lena selects the design she likes the most and zooms in. "Is there a color selector for this thing?" At her words, a color wheel appears, allowing her to pick whichever ones she wants. "Sweet. Okay..."

After a few moments of them toying around with their new options, they look up to see Happy staring at them with an unreadable expression on his face. Peter asks, "What?"

"Nothin'," he replies vaguely. "You take care of the suits, I'll take care of the music."

He presses play and AC/DC's "Back in Black" begins to pour from the speakers just loud enough for them to hear but still quiet so Graham can sleep. It's a very Tony song choice. She remembers him being fond of rock bands, something they both had in common. In a way, it almost feels like he's here with them, watching affectionately as they work.

"Oh, I love Led Zepplin!" Peter exclaims.

Lena chokes and shoots him an incredulous stare. "You did not just say that."

He gives her an oblivious, innocent look. "What?"

"You're lucky you're cute," she says, rolling her eyes fondly. He flushes.

Graham begins to stir after only ten minutes. He blinks in confusion when he's greeted by the sounds of rock music and his friends chattering about their suit changes. Peter glances at him when he detects his movement, lifting his lips in a grin. "Rise and shine."

Lena would advise him to go back to sleep, but she knows it's practically a miracle that he'd even gotten the fifteen minutes that he did, so she keeps her mouth shut as he stumbles over to them.

She elbows him gently and points to the row of suit designs still awaiting his instruction. "Those are yours."

Graham's eyes nearly bug out of his head as he leans down to look at the holograms, all traces of fatigue leaving his battered face. His chapped lips lift in a small smile of wonder and gratitude.

"Hey, you!" Happy calls, pointing to Graham and then at the first aid kit on the table. "First I patch you up, then you play with the gismos."

"Hey, weren't you the guy that was in our school's bathroom that one time?" Graham asks. "Yeah, what the heck was that about?"

He heads back over to Happy to get his injuries treated. Lena bops her head to the music as she works, her fingers flying over the holographic icons and mind racing to keep up with her ideas. She wishes that she could call Shuri and show her some of the designs.

She selects a wrist gauntlet design, an idea springing to her head. "Give that material an energy storage component and raise it to twenty-five percent for now, then copy it over to the other one. Maybe add some blue..."

"Don't forget the comms," Graham adds from where Happy is disinfecting a cut on his shoulder. "Yanno, since our old ones are probably compromi— OW! Happy! Give a man a warning before you start using the hydrogen peroxide!"

Once she has her designs picked out, Lena removes her chest piece from under her shirt and places it into the capsule. She notices that, instead of having to create an entirely new one, Tony had set it to be recalibrated with a new suit design. Jeez, was there anything Tony couldn't do?

It becomes crowded once Graham joins them. They bump elbows frequently, apologizing halfheartedly due to the amount of focus they have on their suits. At one point, Graham accidentally whacks Lena on the head and she hardly even notices. She just goes back to watching the synthetic fibers of her new wig being made, the capsule working faster than her hands ever could. She'd chosen to return back to her former platinum blonde color, but this time, she's not dealing with it getting in her face. She'd decided to have the strands tied behind her head in a braid that will end at the middle of her back.

Lena glances over at Peter's side. The machine whirrs as it forms his suit, needles creating the spandex material and a small spider icon for his chest. The fabric will be black instead of blue in some spots. He babbles away to the AI about what he wants in his webshooters, fully absorbed in his work and not noticing her staring.

On Graham's end, he's creating his suit while simultaneously working on their comms. Though he prefers to showcase his talents in the arts most of the time, he's also gifted in science and technology. After all, he had gotten into Midtown for a reason. He's not moving as quickly as she and Peter are, but he's getting the job done.

"Okay, Fury's got the coded message," Happy reports after an hour of work, jogging up to them with another one of Flash's lives up on his phone screen. "Your friends are at the Tower Bridge. Your boy called it the London Bridge, but I figured it out."

"Is everyone okay?" Graham asks. "My brothers?"

"Everyone seems fine," Happy reassures him. "I'm gonna go scoop 'em up, okay? We're close. How are the suits coming?"

"They're almost done," Peter replies.

"Good. Now, walk me through it."

"We know it's illusion tech, so all we have to do is get on the inside of the illusion. Then, we can take it down, find him, and he's just a guy, so I can take EDITH right back."

Happy nods. "Right. But, last time you got hit by a train."

Lena almost chokes. "What?"

"And you almost drowned," Happy reminds her.

Graham raises a hand. "I got trapped in a forest for thirteen hours and some German lady tried to call the police on me for being creepy and wandering around."

All three of them blink at him, unsure of what to say.

In the end, Peter merely decides to address Happy's doubts. "All of that is true, but — how do I say this? — I have, like, a sixth sense."

"The Peter Tingle," Happy says with a nod. Both Lena and Graham snort in sync at the ridiculous name, causing Peter to glare at them. "That's what you're talking about, right? But it's not working."

"It is working," Peter corrects him. "Well, I–I don't know if it's working—"

Sensing his embarrassment, Happy quickly says, "Okay, so you've got the Peter Tingle! That's the plan. I'm gonna go get your friends, you get that Peter Tingle back online."

As the man walks away, Graham chuckles and mutters, "Peter Tingle."

"Shut up," Peter hisses.

Lena bites the inside of her cheek to keep herself from laughing as well. Even as a smile continues to betray her, she keeps her voice neutral as she asks Graham, "How did you know about Beck? Was it just suspicion, or...?"

"Oh, yeah," Graham says, clearing his throat. "Peter, your Peter Tingle is working."

"Please stop calling it that— wait, what?" he asks, cutting his exasperated sigh off once the words register in his brain.

"I looked down at your arm, and all of the hairs on the back of your wrist were standing straight up. I thought it was weird, but you weren't saying anything, so I asked to go to the bathroom. I slipped into the shadows and something was off. Instead of the voices of the entire bar, I could only hear you guys and the bartender. But there were supposed to be a bunch of people in there, right? So I knew something was wrong."

"Why didn't you tell us any of that?" Lena asks.

Graham shrugs feebly. "Would you have believed me? I would have sounded crazy— to be honest, I kinda thought I was crazy."

Peter brings a hand up to his face. "God, I was so stupid. I'm so sorry."

"Hey." Graham puts a hand on the boy's shoulder. "All's forgiven, remember? Don't sweat it. We're cool, and I hope we never fight again, because you're like another brother to me and I love you."

A smile brightens up Peter's face. "Love you too. Fighting sucked."

"Tell me about it."

Lena grins, happy that her boys are back to normal again.

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a/n:

my present for the holidays to you is the return of graham william seager, a moment we have all been waiting for and one i basically almost cried writing about.

i wanted to get this part finished before 2021, but that's obviously not going to happen. after they get back to new york, i'll still have a few more chapters to write because it would be weird to make this part super short. i have some cute moments to include before everything hits the fan again, so yay!!

also, i've gotten a few questions about if i'm going to replace lena's faceclaim since hailee is officially in the mcu as kate bishop. the answer to that is no! i've grown attached to hailee as lena and i honestly couldn't imagine anyone else as her. the only person who comes close is paris berelc, but i still love hailee too much and it would be a huge pain to have to redo all of the graphics and trailers.

i'm going to be focusing on this story the most so i can finish act 3 asap! then, i'll be marking the book as completed until spider-man 3 comes out.

—kristyn