Marvel zombies?!!?

The base's steel doors ground shut behind you, sealing out the dust and the distant sound of the infected still shrieking at the fence line.

Natasha was the last one through, rifle still raised toward the door until the locks clicked into place. Then, and only then, did she let it drop to her side.

She-Hulk staggered in next, one arm slung around Jennifer's shoulder, no wait, she was Jennifer, the green fading from her skin in slow patches as she shrank back down to her human frame. Her breathing was ragged.

"Where's Clint?" she asked, though her voice already knew.

Natasha didn't answer right away. She set her rifle down on the nearest table, movements careful, deliberate, the kind of careful that came from years of practice at not looking like anything was wrong.

"He didn't make it out of the parking structure," she said finally. "They came up too fast."

Jennifer went still. Then something cracked. "We were RIGHT there. We could have gone back for him."

"There was nothing to go back for." Natasha's voice stayed level, flat in the way that made it clear the flatness was costing her something.

The Wasp had shrunk down small in the corner near the door, arms wrapped around herself, saying nothing. She'd known Clint the longest, maybe, but she didn't have the words for it yet, after all after her hank’s death she’s been more silent then ever.

Behind them, the last of the green had drained out of the Hulk, and Bruce Banner sank down against the wall, wrapping the spare jacket someone tossed him around his shoulders. He looked exhausted in that particular way, the fight had taken everything out of him, and grief didn't know that.

Jennifer paced, hands balled into fists, jaw tight. "This isn't fair. He had a family who is still out there fighting. He had-" She stopped herself, pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes.

Natasha crossed the room and put a hand on her shoulder, firm, grounding. "I know," she said quietly. "I've lost people before. It doesn't get easier. You just get better at carrying it."

Jennifer didn't answer, just nodded once, sharp, and turned away to hide her face.

The room went quiet except for Bruce's slow breathing and the hum of the base's generators. Natasha stood there for a moment longer, looking at nothing in particular, before her eyes finally found you across the room.

"Hey," she said, voice softer now. "You okay?"

The window latch clicked shut behind him, muffling the distant sound of sirens and something closer, wetter, that didn't bear thinking about. Peter peeled his mask halfway off, just enough to breathe.

"Okay. Okay, we're good. We're good." He said it twice, like saying it made it true.

Squirrel Girl was already bouncing on the balls of her feet, tail twitching with leftover adrenaline. "That was AWESOME, did you see the one I did where I just, like, tackle-rolled the guy into the dumpster? Tippy-Toe bit through his shoelaces, that's a whole strategy now, I'm calling it the Shoelace Special-"

"Doreen."* Peter rubbed at his eyes under the mask. "We almost died four separate times, how are you smiling."

"Five, but who's counting... plus you gotta stay optimistic."

The apartment door swung open from the hallway before either of them could say more, and May was already there, dish towel still in one hand like she'd dropped everything mid-task.

"Peter." Her voice cracked on the single syllable. She crossed the room fast and pulled him into her arms, mask and all, not caring about the grime or the tear in his sleeve. "I heard it on the radio, they said the bridge was overrun, I didn't-"

"I'm fine, May, I'm fine." He hugged her back, tight, one hand splayed against her back like he needed to feel her breathing as much as she needed to feel his.

MJ appeared behind her, arms crossed over a paint-stained hoodie, but the toughness in her stance cracked the second her eyes landed on Peter. "You said you'd call."

"My phone's at the bottom of the Hudson."

"That's not an excuse, that's a reason to call earlier." But she was already moving, folding herself against his side, forehead against his shoulder, and whatever else she meant to say got lost somewhere in the exhale.

Squirrel Girl stood off to the side, rocking on her heels, glancing between the three of them with a small, crooked smile, the kind of smile that came from watching a reunion that wasn't hers but was glad to witness anyway, a safe family in this chaotic new world. Tippy-Toe peeked out from her shoulder and chittered softly.

May finally pulled back, wiping at her face with the back of her wrist, and her eyes moved past Peter for the first time, landing on you.

"Oh, honey," she said, already reaching. She was so kind of worrying for a stranger. "Come here."

The gates groaned as they slammed shut behind the last of the stragglers, metal folding in on itself at Magneto's command until the fence was less a barrier and more a solid wall.

He stood at the center of the courtyard, cape torn at the hem, silver hair matted with something that wasn't rain. Around him, the rescued kids huddled in clusters, some still crying, some too stunned for tears, herded by whatever X-Men had made it out with them.

"Count them," Magneto said, not raising his voice, not needing to. "Every child. Twice."

Mystique peeled away from the shadow of the doorway where she'd been watching the tree line, form still flickering between shapes like she hadn't decided who she needed to be yet. "Thirty-one," she said. "We lost four at the bridge."

Something tightened in his jaw, brief, controlled. "Then thirty-one is what we protect."

Toad crouched near the fence line, tongue flicking nervously at the air like he could taste the infected still out there past the treeline. "They're gonna keep coming. That many groaning idiots don't just wander off."

"No," Magneto agreed. "They don't."

Pyro dropped down from where he'd been perched on the wall, lighter already spinning between his fingers, restless in the way he got when there was nothing left to burn yet. "So what, we hold the line? Just the four of us and whatever's left of the X-brats?"

"We hold the line," Magneto said, "because there is no one else left to hold it."

Storm approached from behind, what remained of her uniform scorched at one shoulder, eyes still faintly white with the last of a spent lightning strike. "The children need somewhere safe to sleep tonight. Not speeches."

"They'll have both." Magneto turned, taking in the courtyard, the huddled kids, the cracked windows of the mansion behind them, the ragged handful of allies he had left, allies he never expected to call that word. "Get them inside. Rotate watch in shifts of two. Mystique, the east wall. Toad, the tunnels, in case they try to come up from underneath. Pyro, you have the perimeter."

Pyro grinned, sharp and a little too eager. "Now you're speaking my language."

Magneto's gaze swept the courtyard once more, cataloguing faces, counting losses even as he'd told Mystique to count the living, and finally settled on you, still standing near the gate where you'd helped drag the last of the wounded through.

He studied you for a long moment, something unreadable behind the metal-worn eyes of a man who had buried too many of his own to lose more.

"You held that gate longer than anyone should have," he said. "Get some rest. I'll need you again before dawn."

Smoke still curled from the collapsed overpass, and beneath it, the horde didn't move like a horde anymore. It moved like something with a single, working mind.

Luke Cage crouched behind a burned-out car, one hand braced against the hood, watching the mass of bodies shift and reform around whatever stood at its center. "That's ain’t normal," he said, voice low. "Infected don't organize like that."

Elektra was already still, the particular stillness she got right before violence, twin sai loose but ready in her hands.

"Something's directing them."

"Or someone," Jennifer muttered, green already climbing up her arms in slow, deliberate waves, like she was saving the rest for when it mattered.

The horde parted, not scattering, parting, the way water moves around a rock, and there in the center of the clearing they'd made stood a single figure. Still upright. Still whole, in the ways that mattered least.

Luke's jaw tightened. "It's not attacking them. It's leading them."

"Since when do the infected have a chain of command?" Elektra asked, circling wide, sai catching the grey light.

The figure's head turned, slow, tracking the movement, though the eyes behind it had long since stopped being eyes in any way that meant seeing. A low sound rolled out of the crowd, dozens of throats echoing whatever sound came first from the one in the center.

Jennifer took a step forward, then stopped, something flickering across her face that wasn't quite recognition yet, just the itch of it. "Wait."

"Wait for what," Luke said, already bracing.

"That suit." Jennifer's voice dropped, and for the first time since the overpass, some of the green receded instead of rising. "I know that know that tatted suit.”

Elektra's sai lowered, just slightly, just enough. She'd gone quiet in a different way now, the readiness draining into something colder.

The figure tilted its head at the sound of their voices, some faint muscle-memory flicker in the motion, and the horde stirred restlessly around it, waiting on a command that never quite came, not in words, not anymore.

Luke's breath caught somewhere in his chest, refusing to move. "fuck," he said, quiet, like saying it louder might make it truer. "holy shit it’s {{user}}"

It was you.