New York City; Currently Under Attack
Shit shit shit shit–
I sprint down the cracked sidewalk, debris cluttering the streets and glass crunching beneath every step. Windows have been blown out, building foundations wobbling and ready to dissolve at the slightest push. The wind howls, a screeching, eerily human noise that rings in my ears and disorients my thoughts. I can’t even tell where I’m going. I can’t even tell if I’m running away.
A building explodes a couple of blocks behind me and I dive into the nearest alleyway, curling up into a ball against the old jagged bricks as I ride out the shockwave.
It passes, but not without a layer of dust that I can’t escape, choking up my throat and stinging my vision. The world has gone still.
I strain my ears to hear any indication of that destructive source, but there’s only ringing. I stand on shaking legs, stumbling deeper into the alley. The rising dust clouds cover the sun so sharply that it gets dark overhead, and I cough again. My mouth tastes like singed, coarse dirt. Everytime I blink, my eyes, irritated, tear up again, to the point where I’m involuntarily crying as I try and venture through the endless haze. My hands press against the walls, throbbing in pain. Glass pieces have dug their way in, some leaving longer cuts and others just uncomfortably deep.
I turn a corner and pause. The wall of the building on the left side of the alley has been crushed inward, like something was thrown at it. Something big. A car? I can’t see the source of the crater. I quietly step closer, squinting. Bricks litter the area, clattering as I climb over them. I trip, unable to focus well enough. Once, twice, thr–
Thwip.
…something keeps me from losing my balance a third time. I stare down at the woven web that has shot out from where the source should be to the opposite, right wall of the alley, pulled taught right in front of my middle like a tightrope line, keeping me from pitching forward. I don’t say anything for a moment. Then the line loses tension and falls to the ground.
There’s a small groan from beyond where I can see. I drop to a sort of crawl, despite how my hands and knees hate me for it, and follow the line in the direction of noise.
It doesn’t hit me until I see it for myself:
Spiderman, with the suit and the tech and the webs and all the bells and whistles, clutching his middle as he tries to roll over to his side. I can’t help but stare, wide eyed. Most people meet him swinging over the city, not… surrounded by rubble and visibly hurt.
“Um,” I begin, voice scratching up, “Uh, do you need– help?”
He barely spares a glance my way, freezes, and then whips his head back around to me and quickly sits up, coughing violently. I can see the bloodstains dotted across his suit. He shakes his head, making 'vague it’s fine, leave me alone' gestures in my general direction.
I crawl a bit closer, looking over my shoulder. “I can’t really go anywhere,” I rasp sheepishly, ignoring how he shrinks away and sitting myself down right next to him, drawing my knees up. “I can’t see where I’m going.”
He doesn’t reply. I wonder for a moment if he’s ever actually talked– I think he does? The memories I pull up of stories and media are really fuzzy right now. He looks– rather, his face turns– away from me, and he coughs again, fumbling with something on his wrist.
My gaze catches on the mechanism, zeroing in on just how much detail there is. “Hey, did you make that?” I ask, surely failing to hide any awed expression. “Is that where the webs come from? Did you come up with the technology on your own? What–” I falter, frowning at the empty clicks it makes, “Huh. Is it broken? Is there a spring mechanism? Maybe it got loose or twisted? Is there a power source?” My eyes flicker up midway through talking and I freeze.
He’s staring at me.
“S- sorry,” I mumble, moving out of his space, trying to keep my face from heating up. “Just… uh,” I hiss a little at the pain in my hands that flares when I press them against the bricks, “Yeah. Sorry.”
He shakes his head, tweaks the mechanism a little more, and successfully shoots a web at the ground in front of us, pulling back a random brick. He hands it over to me and I don’t need to see his face to know there’s a grin beneath that mask.
The brick is far heavier than he makes it look, and it weighs my arms down. “Woah,” I huff, struggling to hold it up, and eventually letting it drop, “No wonder you can fight these guys when nobody else can.”
He stands, dusting himself off. I watch him sway for a moment.
“You don’t look… too good, man,” I say, raising an eyebrow.
“Never better,” he remarks after a moment, rolling his shoulders.
I blink, also standing. His voice is a little odd.
The howling wind suddenly returns, screeching past, and I instinctively grab his arm in a blind panic. “I want out,” I hiss, nearly clawing at the suit in an effort to push us off the crumbling bricks, “You– ugh– move, dude–”
For a second my pushing does jackshit, but then a low, faint rumbling sound echoes through the alleyways, and he snaps right into action, grabbing my waist and sending out a web– where to, I don’t take note of, because suddenly the floor drops out from underneath me and I direct all my focus to trying not to scream.
Wind, sharp and cold rushes past as we break beyond the dust and keep moving up. I bury my face in his shoulder and bite my tongue, squeezing my eyes shut as my stomach swoops with nausea.
It can’t be less than a second, because then the ground hits again– this time, though, on top of a roof a few stories up. The landing is harsh, and we roll a few times before coming to a stop.
“What–” I wheeze, propping myself up on my elbows, sprawled on top of him, “The fuck was that!?”
“Sorry–” he chokes, swallowing, “It was gonna–”
As if on cue, a few streets away there’s a small explosion– and I watch the tops of the houses disappear. “Oh,” I say dumbly, “...you moved quickly.”
He lets out a breath. “Yeah. Sort of a requirement.”
I roll my eyes, getting up. “Smartass,” I grumble, peering over the side of the building, “What street–?”
“Near the corner store run by that Kimberly lady and her cursed cash register.”
“...I guess that explains the 'neighborhood' aspect.” I think for a minute, trying to recalibrate where I’m at. I’m about thirty minutes away from where I began, and near Kimberly… I inhale sharply. May’s place isn’t far. The fighting is getting closer. “I’ve got it from here,” I state, “Is there a staircase around here–?”
“Hey, no, you shouldn’t be running around–”
“Listen, guy,” I begin, straining to pull the rooftop access open, “I get that you’re cool and hot and great at kicking ass and all, but I really hate heights and also I need to get to Aunt May’s because she was expecting me to be home by now and I know for a fact that neither she nor Peter will rest until they know I’m alright, so just– just– fuck, this stupid door–”
“Push.”
“What?”
“It’s– it’s a push door.”
“Oh.” I push the door and it swings open easily. “So it is.”
“You sure–”
“Just go slay the dragon or whatever that explode-y thing is,” I say, stepping inside, “And do it before… 6pm? That’d be great,” I give him a quick wave, rushing down a few flights and emerging into a set of alleyways that I do recognize.
I take a breath, try not to puke, and head in May’s direction.
[later that evening]
“--nd then there was a huge explosion,” I mimic the noise, puffing out my cheeks and spreading my arms out, “And I was all like whaaat and he was all like,” (dramatic spiderman voice) “'it’s a requirement to move fast' and I like realized how close to home I was so I totally booked it– oh and also he knows where Kimberly works? He must be all over the place– and he was totally confused that I didn’t want to do a whoosh-y swing down the buildings but man I that thing is scary I don’t know how the hell he does it but anyway he just let me run off? Which was a little weird? I dunno I guess he trusted me to get home and not get lost again. Which, by the way, would have been so embarrassing. Imagine getting saved by Spiderman and then immediately getting in trouble again. I wonder if there’s people who he’s buddies with because they get, like, stuck doing dumb shit all the time? And–”
“MJ.”
“Y’know I don’t really understand the fangirls but like at the same time I guess I could see it? Kinda. Hmm. Yeah I see it. Isn’t he usually super chatty though? Maybe I just caught him on an off day–”
“MJ.”
“I think I called him cool? That was totally really cringe honestly. And I said something stupid about a dragon– don’t ask, it was horrible– and I kinda regret that too, but I think he was too busy to–”
“Milo,” Peter rasps, sitting at his bedroom’s desk and running a hand across his face, “Can we– can we focus on homework? For once?”
I gasp dramatically, making various accused sounds from where I’m cross-legged on his bed, surrounded by long-abandoned papers and a half-open laptop. “Don’t you want to hear about the possible fangirl I might become? I can feel the insides of my brain cooking up a new crush, Peter. This is riveting news. The most fascinating thing to arrive all month. Maybe the 12 year old fanatics will embrace me as one of their own.”
He makes a pained noise, avoiding all eye contact. “Stop.”
I huff. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll live a long, boring life instead, never caring about a single thing.”
“Finish the damn homework,” he grumbles, peeking at me through his fingers, “We need this in by tonight.”
I mock him a little, and reluctantly open the work back up.
The rest of the night is spent studying chemistry.