#> and he calls him his soft villain cuz he never yells as him im.

[waloeders]

THE VA CALLS HIM BARNEY TOO THATS SO FUNNY 😭😭

[calpalirwin]

Super Dork

Summary: With great power comes great responsibility. And trauma. No bad guy Spidey-Ash ever fought could compare to the demons in his own head.

A/N: I got yelled at for more again. Which is fine cuz I fuckin love this AU.

Content: Big sad. Fluff landing.

Word Count: 1.5k

And away, and away we go!

__

Part 3

“You got any clothes in this bag of yours you can change into? I can wash your suit for you,” she offered, nudging his backpack with her foot.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. You already did so much. I sh- I’m just gonna g-“ his voice broke off and his face scrunched up in pain as he leaned forward to pull himself up off the couch.

“You are staying for overnight monitoring,” she said, helping him lie back into the cushions. “Doctor’s orders.” She picked up his bag and started to rummage through his belongings. “Sweats, good. C’mon, let me help you get changed and in bed.”

“I’m fine on the couch,” he said, lifting his hips to tug off the bottoms of his suit, revealing- unsurprisingly so- more bruising. “You don’t have to give up your bed for me,” he added as he eased his way into the sweatpants.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Ash. I’m not sleeping on my couch for you.”

“So both of us are going to sleep in your bed? Together?”

“Not like we haven’t done it before.”

“If I recall correctly, we didn’t exactly do a whole lot of sleeping, sweetheart.”

“Oh, the charm’s back. How nice…” She rolled her eyes sarcastically as she gathered up his suit. “There special instructions on how to wash this, or…?”

“Yeah. You can’t.”

“I can’t?”

“Self-cleaning technology. To- he developed it with the help of Wakanda technology for me.”

“That old suit was rather smelly,” she commented, not wanting to press the issue of how he had gotten his new fancy suit.

“Try living in it,” he chuckled with only a small trace of humor as his mind took him to a dark place against his will.

“Hey, come back to me, Ash,” she coaxed softly, resting her hand on his bicep, her voice fighting to reach him through the fog that was welcoming him.

“Can we go to bed now?” he asked in a voice that reminded her of the boy he used to be, shy and uncertain. A far cry from the confident charm possessed by the man he had grown to be.

~~~

“Hey, Ash, I’m gonna need you to hold this building for me, kid!” Tony’s voice sounded in his earpiece. It was calm amidst the chaos raining down around them. A skill that Ashton had yet to learn from his mentor. “I’m sending you my location. Stay low. Get people to safety. Do not engage, do you understand, me?”

“Roger,” he replied, eyes darting around for her. She was here. He could sense it. And he couldn’t leave if he knew she was in danger. And Tony had told him to get people to safety. And she was people. So he wasn’t technically defying orders…

“Yeah, kid?” Steve’s voice was in his ear now. Breathless with exertion, but steadily calm. If they could remain calm, so could he. Time to prove he was more than neighborhood friendly.

“Not you, sir,” Ashton responded, allowing a small chuckle.

“Copy that.”

Ashton chuckled quietly again to himself as he finally found her. “What are you still doing here? Run! Get out of here! Get to shelter!”

“Come with me!” she begged. “Let them fight this!”

“I have to help them! I have orders!”

“Now’s not the time to play hero, Ashton! You’re no good to anybody dead!”

“And I’m no good to anybody standing here arguing with you when I have a job to do! Get to safety! Don’t make me tell you again!”

“Ash!” she continued to beg. “Don’t leave me! Come with me, please!”

“You need to get out of here!” he screamed at her.

“No! I’m not leaving you!”

“Get out!”

“No!”

“I can’t save you from this!”

“I don’t need you to save me!”

He shot his web, flinging her out of harm’s way, cutting her cries out of his mind.

~~~

His legs kicked at the blankets in his sleep as the dream held him captive. “No…” he called out weakly, his body twisting.

~~~

“That way!” he directed. “Keep running that way and don’t look back! There’s shelter ahead! Keep going!” He tried to keep his voice upbeat, friendly, as he raised it so it carried out among the stampede of people running past him.

“Building’s evacuated and secured, Mr. Stark,” he reported into his earpiece.

“Keep clearing out the city. We got to get all these people out.”

He swallowed the surge of anger. Throwing a fit because he didn't like his assignment wasn’t going to prove he wasn’t the same kid he was when he had first gotten his powers. He didn’t have time to be angry for long as all his senses rang loudly like a fire alarm pounding in his head. A building three blocks away was about to come down with people still inside.

He let his senses take control of his body, taking it to where it was needed.

He quickly took in the scene and set to work. He prayed the webbing would hold as he did his best to secure it to the buildings around it. The muscles in his arms screamed in protest as he gritted his teeth and planted his feet. “Tony! This building’s coming down!”

“Is everyone out?”

“There’s a family still inside. 4th floor, 7th window. Tony, I can’t hold this building and get them out at the same time… there’s still people below. Why are there still people?! You gotta get out of here!”

“Hold the building, I’m on my way.”

Ashton heard the soft ping of a tendril of webbing breaking off. “No. No, no, no…” he whispered, his voice climbing high as he frantically shot out more webs for more grip. “Hey, Cap? Your shield strong enough to prop up a building?” Ashton joked as he fought against the panic threatening to seize him.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Stark, kid,” Steve chuckled. “Hang in there. He’s on his way.”

“On your left, Grandpa,” Tony said and Ashton looked up to see the red blur.

“Howard was older than me, Tony…”

The tendrils continued to snap, almost faster than Ashton could fling them. “Tony, my webbing’s not holding. I don- Tony, what do I do?”

“Hey, kid?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m about to ask you to do something and I just need you to do it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“The building’s structurally damaged. It’s coming down and there’s no stopping it. I’m going to do my best to get these people out that are still trapped. But I need you to let go and get somewhere safe. Can you do that?”

“Tony, no! I can hold it until you get the people out!”

“Let go, kid. Your job’s done. Clock out. Go home.”

“NO!” Ashton screamed as the building started to fall, his webbing breaking in a series of rapid snaps.

~~~

“TONY!” The cry tore out of Ashton’s throat as his eyes flew open, panic and terror in his chest. He fought for each breath as his senses grounded him. He was safe. In bed. Alive. Tears spilled a path down his cheeks as his shoulders heaved with the sobs breaking free.

“Hey,” a voice called out in the darkness and a soft hand was on his arm. “Shh, it’s okay. It was only a dream.”

“No, it wasn’t…” was the broken whisper. “I was supposed to secure the buildings and get everyone to safety. It was a simple fuckin’ assignment and I couldn’t even do that, right… If I had been faster, I could have saved them. Your parents. Him. Everyone.”

“My parents were already dead on the other side of town. You and that building had nothing to do with their deaths. As for Tony? He was a genius, Ash. He knew he wasn’t getting out of that building unscathed.”

“I should have tried harder! Been better…”

“You did everything you could. You made all the right calls. Ash, it was an accident. An accident that you were part of, sure. But it had nothing to do with you.”

“People died because of me!”

“People died because of Loki’s army. People lived because of you. I lived because of you.”

Her admission lifted some of the weight pressing down on him. He could live through the villain smackdowns. He could live through the loss of life. It wasn’t easy, but he could do it. But the loss of her? Well, let’s just say that if it came down to her or his powers, he would choose her and never think twice. “Of all the things I’ve lost, you’re the one thing I can’t bear to lose,” he told her, reaching out to grab her hand in his, letting the memories of all the times he had done this before flood out the rest of the weight.

“Then maybe you should stop letting me go,” she replied, squeezing his fingers with hers.

“I’m never letting you go again,” he promised, lifting up their hands to brush his lips against her knuckles.

__

Tag List

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