Chapter 21: Desperate Times Call For Unlikely Allies

"If people were rain, I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane"
-Miles Hatler, Looking for Alaska

"Wanna tell me why a genius like yourself needs my help to find a teenage boy?" Ember asked as they drove out of the school parking lot.

"Because-" Tony began calmly, ignoring her passive aggressive attitude. He cut himself short once he fully registered her words. "Wait, how do you even know he's a teenager?"

That caught Ember by surprise, she had always assumed Spider-Man was a teenager and she never even considered the possibility of anything else. It just made sense, he wasn't that tall, he seemed too awkward and sometimes his voice could get a bit too high.Tony had just confirmed that she, indeed, had been right, but it was just when he said it that the blonde girl realized that no matter how many times she told Michelle otherwise, Ember had in fact given a bit too much thought to Spider-Man's identity.

"Just a hunch" Ember answered, not wanting to keep over analyzing the situation she quickly went back to the problem at hand. "The better question is how come the great Iron Man can't even keep track of his impulsive fanboy?"

"I underestimated the kid, I put a tracker on his suit but he removed it" Tony said, once again ignoring her slight jab at his abilities.

"Of course he did," Ember sneered, it was funny how a teenage boy could just outsmart one of the brightest people in the world. Spider-Man was ballsy, incredibly stupid but brave enough to go against   Tony Stark's rules. "lucky for you,I'm not that stupid"

The blonde took the laptop Stark handed her and began typing, she really wasn't in any hurry which only irritated the playboy genius. "I'm sorry, 'Mrs. I'm better than you', but could you go any slower?"

Ember rolled her eyes, but other than that she didn't acknowledged him and kept typing. It only took a few more seconds before she got the location. "It looks like your boy is planning a little trip" Ember announced, showing him the screen where a red blinking dot appeared to be by New York Harbor.

"Oh that can't be good" Tony groaned once he realized what Peter was planning. "Happy, stop the car"

"Sir, we're still a good 40 minutes away from there!" Happy exclaimed, giving his boss a questioning glance through his rearview mirror but nonetheless listened to his instructions.

"Brilliant observation," Tony said annoyed, unbuckling  his seat belt as the car pulled to a stop "which is why we're a taking a different route"

"We?" Ember complained giving him a nasty look. She had better things to, well not really,  but the last thing she wanted to do was go looking for a teenage boy who clearly wanted nothing to do with her. If she isn't pinning after Peter Parker, then she must definitely wont be pinning after Spider-Man. The arachnid hero made it pretty clear he didn't want to work wit her and Ember wasn't about to save his sorry ass just because Iron Man said so.

"Yes, we" Tony began before he pushed a button next to his seat. Ember watched amazed as the Iron Mans suit began crawling from his finger until it covered him from head to toe. Once his suit was on he gave one last look to the angry teenager and giving his instruction as he was getting out of the car "so save  that pout for your boyfriend and suit up Frozen, cause we have a ferry to catch"

"I'm not going I already helped you find out where he is I'm sure you can take it from here" Ember announced grabbing her bag and following him out of the car.

"Listen here princess-" Tony began grabbing her wrist as she was about to turn around. Ember turned to look at him, her glowing white eyes giving him a look that could kill.

"No, you listen" Ember began as frost began to appear on her fingertips. "You may be the boss of freaking  Spiderass but I don't take orders from you" she growled,  jerking her arm from his grasp.

"You're right, but right now I need your help" Tony admitted, completely unfazed by her threatening eyes but with a newfound respect for the young blonde lingering on his tone "And you don't have to do it for the kid or even for me but do it for the people that are about to get hurt if we don't get to that ferry now"

"Fine" Ember finally give in before grabbing her blue cloak from her bag and putting it on. "Let's go"

"I said suit up" Tony looked at her up and down not, unsure if she was being serious or not.

"Oh I'm sorry, your highness, but what were you expecting?" Ember snapped, not liking the way he was judging her.

"That's just a cloak!" Ember rolled her eyes at his startled tone. She wore the same thing every time, she even wore it back at Germany but it seems like the millionaire barely even noticed her back then.

"Not everyone has billions of dollars to spend on toys" she snarled, making sure no one was looking before turning into her full Ice Sorceress form. "It's not like I need it"

It was true when she turned it was almost like she was a different person. Everything form her hair to her eyes changed. The cloak did a pretty good job at hiding her features and even if it didn't her face was also covered in frost.

"You're in dire need of an upgrade, kid" Tony shrugged before he began to fly away, knowing the blonde girl would follow.

"Shut up" Ember muttered, even though no one was there to liste. Then she began creating her ice path to slide through the city.

❅

"Freeze! FBI"

Those two simple words managed to catch Peter Parker off guard. After he got the information from Aaron Davis, he quickly went to the eleven o'clock ferry. He came with no plan whatsoever but ready to take out all the bad guys that came his way. Of course now, as he stood in the ferry that was carrying dangerous alien weapons with federal agents pointing their guns at him, he began regretting his decision.

"What do you mean, FBI?" Peter freaked out holding his hands out in defense. As far as he knew the FBI had no idea about the alien tech pr the guy with the wings but here they were and they didn't look to happy to see Spiderman there.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation-" Karen began before being cut off by a still confused Peter.

"I know, but what are they doing here?"

A saw like sound coming from the other side of the ferry cut him off. The guy he saw earlier stood there, now fully armed with his winged suit and one of his alien weapons pointed at the group. At the sound of a threat the agents turned and began firing shots at the winged man but it did nothing.

"Get out of the way. Get out of the way!" Peter screamed, as a familiar purple blast landed a couple of feet away from his head.
"Look out, look out, look out." He said as he grabbed one of the agents and threw them out of the way just a second before a car flew past them

"Get to the top deck.We're getting out of here." the Vulture ordered to his now free partner who was quick to do as requested with the federal agent right on his toes.

Peter shot a web, trying to stop the accomplice from fleeing but Vulture fired another blast to stop him. Silently cursing under his breath, Peter fired a web to the winged man's leg and held on to him like a kite. He then glued it to a car and proceeded to swing around to grab onto the other leg. All of his efforts proved to be useless as the man used his sharp wings to cut off all of his bindings.

In one last attempt to stop him Peter fired a web towards his gun just before the Vulture fired it "Activate Taser web!" Peter said, trying to avoid getting hit by the energy blasts. Electricity flew from the system in his wrist and threw the web holding the Vulture's weapon.

The sudden shock managed to distract the Vulture and caused him to lose grip on his weapon. The gun landed a few steps behind Peter and began going crazy. Panic cursed through his veins as he desperately fired his webs at the alien tech to try and contain the energy blasts.

"You're messing with things you don't understand." the Vulture told him before he turned to fly away.

Just as Peter was about to make a retort, the alien blasts broke the webs and as if to prove the criminal was right shot a huge blast that went through the entire ferry. You could hear the scream and blasts from the passengers as Peter watched the damage it caused. Chaos reigned the as water began flowing through the floor and began to overflow the main deck and the ferry began to split right in half.

"Oh, my God. What do I do?" The teenager began panicking as he tried to think of how he could possibly fix this mess, "Karen give me an x-ray of the boat and target all the strongest points." He ordered as an idea popped into his head.

Peter Parker began to swing back and forth, webbing the stronger points from each side trying to hold the whole ship in place.
He jumped, he flipped and im a matter of seconds he had managed to secure all of the strongest points and saved the day. Or so he thought.

"Great job, Peter.You are 98 percent successful."

"Ninety-eight?" Peter panted, surveying his masterpiece trying to find the flaw.

"Yeah, Spider-Man!" One of the passenger shouted, and just as he began to celebrate and clap his hands a loud snap ceased any kind of excitement.

Suddenly all the webs securing the ship began to snap and water began flowing twice as fast. All the people in the ferry began freaking out and crying for what they were sure would be their death.

Peter jumped from his spot and fired to two webs to each side of the ferry. The arachnid hero hanged from the middle pulling with all his might, he cried out in pain as he tried to prevent the inevitable. And then he felt as he began to lower to the ground, a sudden drop in temperature envolved around him.

"What the hell?" He wondered out loud, once he was standing with the rest of the civilians watching as all movement stopped around them and the water beneath their feet began freezing.

"Hey asshole, I told you I was done cleaning up your messes" A familiar cold voice shouted from above his head.

Ice Sorceress was standing at the top of the ferry, her white eyes piercing right through him. Peter stood there still trying to catch his breath and trying to comprehend what the blonde was doing there. Nevertheless, he couldn't deny that he was glad to see her.

"Hi, Spider-Man" Another voice cut the reunion short. Tony Stark was in his Iron Man suit, hovering by the window to his right. "Band practice, was it?"

Tony gave a quick nod to Ember, it was time to get to work. Ice Sorceress flew  towards the left side of the ferry and froze a bit of water for her to stand on.

"Ready" Ember announced through the ear piece, Tony had given her on their way to the ferry. She took a deep breath, raising her hands above her head, pointing her palms towards the side of the ship and closing her  glowing white eyes . "Come on Em, come on" she began chanting on her head, trying to encourage herself. Then she created a blast of wind like she never had before.

From inside the ferry the passengers, and Peter, watched in awe as wind began soaring from Ice Sorceress hands. Suddenly, the strong blast began moving the left half of the ferry closer to the other one and Peter grabbed onto the closest thing possible at the sudden movement. He was unable to take his eyes off from Ember, she looked almost ethereal with her almost white hair flying all over her frost freckled face. He watched as the clouds above her head began turning gray and he almost couldn't believe his eyes when a couple of snowflakes began to fall around her. Peter knew she was powerful, but he had never seen this amount of power from her.

The people began cheering and praising her but the girl paid no attention to them, this was the most power she had ever used and it required a lot of concentration. Just as exhaustion began to take over her, the drones of Tony began pushing from the other side until both ends finally met. Ember dropped her hands to her side, only taking a second to clean the blood that began to flow from her nose and for the first time watched what she had managed and she allowed a tiny smile to crawl onto her lips. Maybe it sounded conceited but in that moment she felt proud of her progress. From the girl who was terrified of her powers to the now young woman that was able to save a bunch of people and even create a little snowstorm.

"Great job kid" Tony's voice came from her earpiece, snapping her out of her thoughts "Now, come help me seal this thing"

❅

[word count; 2323]

A/n: I know Im the worst when it comes to updates but I swear I really do try and ill finish this story even if no one read it!

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