End Of Beginning

Peter

Matt and him quickly suit up, exiting through the roof door. A few blocks down, even visible from where they are, are metallic flashes of green.

“Man, this guy does not give up. Does he really want me dead that bad?” Matt nods. “Hey, have you ever wanted to try web swinging? We could make a pretty cool entrance.” Matt begins to run and leap onto the next building before Peter could even finish. Peter follows behind, jumping and leaping from building to building as well.

The two perch on a building above Scorpion, watching the rampage.

“Should I surprise attack him from above?” Peter asks, prepared to launch himself at the man.

“No, you should-” Peter jumps. Matt watches as he falls, elegantly, limbs extended like a falling cat.

Scorpions tail bats him away midair and Peter flies in the opposite direction, less elegantly.

“Shit, I thought a surprise attack would totally work.” Peter says, once Matt reaches him on the ground.

“I’ve been looking for you, Spider-Man. I was disappointed, I thought my small stab wound had killed you.”

Peter approaches the man, cracking his knuckles.

That was totally intimidating, right?

“Disappointed? I thought you wanted me dead?”

Scorpion laughs, turning his full attention towards Peter.

“I want to look you in the eyes when I kill you.” He digs his tail into the ground. The ground quakes as he breaks the pavement. He uses this as leverage to propel himself towards Peter, the tail acting as a spring of sorts.

Peter webs up his eyes while Scorpion is midair, something that had given him a bit of leverage the last time they had fought.

This time his webs slid off Scorpions eye plates like it was nothing.

Peter continues trying to web the man’s eyes to no avail and he pins Peter to the ground. Scorpion brings his face close to Peter’s, smiling at him as he squirms.

“I made some adjustments to my suit, you can’t blind me anymore.” He laughs out. Peter fakes a cough.

“Phew, you need a breath mint man.” Scorpion shouts out angrily, bringing his tail over his shoulder to stab Peter. The tip impales itself into the ground mere centimetres away from Peter’s ear as he shifts his head.

Matt wraps his legs up once again, pulling them out from under him. Scorpion crashes to the side, weakening his grip enough for Peter to scramble away.

Scorpions tail easily slices through the cord attached to Matt’s billy club.

“No matter what you two try, you can’t beat me. I’m always changing. I’m always getting better.”

Peter, for the first time in his life, felt stuck. Fighting came to him on instinct, he could move without thinking, but now he was unsure of what to do. Scorpion knew how to prevent and combat every one of their moves.

He spent two hours fighting Scorpion with Matt, wrapping him tightly in webs like a cocoon, spending most of his time trying to get the barbed tip off of his tail.

Scorpion always managed to break through his webs, something that he had only ever seen Wade do with his swords.

He got thrown around, his ankle twisted, his face smashed into various hard surfaces. His right eye was so swollen he couldn’t see out of it anymore.

“Daredevil, I don’t know what to do. My web shooters are almost out.”

Matt knocks his shoulder. He was worse for wear, almost more torn apart than Peter.

“Open your ears. If your spider senses aren’t working go back to the human ones.” Matt jumps out of the way of a well aimed tail swing and Peter follows. He always had good hearing, especially after the bite but it was mostly a side thought for him. He used his hearing most often when he was actively trying to hear something, not when he had to focus on not dying.

“Open my ears, open my ears.” Peter closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and dodges. It’s the exact same as it was with Mysterio. Deep breath, listen, dodge.

He repeated this over and over again. He could focus on dodging easily. Listening and dodging was easy to do, it was figuring out how to listen and fight at the same time that was going to be hard.

He had to focus on hearing past the thrums of adrenaline crashing in his ears like waves, past the deep practised breaths, and shouts from Scorpion.

He had to focus on the whirs of Scorpions tail, working mechanically as they swung.

“Good, Spider-Man, you’re doing good, now use your eyes. What do you notice, what can you see?” Matt yells out. It throws off Peter’s focus and Scorpions tail crashes into his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs and throwing him back. He felt his ribs shift and move uncomfortably.

“Sorry Pete.” Matt apologises, helping Peter up from where he landed.

“S’okay.” Matt pulls him in, bringing his mouth close to where Peter’s ear is under his mask.

“On his back. That’s why I wanted you to use your eyes. There’s something on his back, I can’t figure out what it is.”

Peter nods his head, shrugging Matt off and running back towards Scorpion. He dodges underneath him, sliding between his legs before quickly launching himself up onto his back. Matt runs up behind him, wrapping his arms around Scorpions tail to try and distract them.

Scorpions head and tail whip around, turning quickly to try and see what the two were doing. He shakes his tail back and forth trying to shake off Matt. Peter looks up and down the spine of his suit. In the middle of his back is a small raised square, metal tubes running off the sides and into the back of the suit.

“Okay, here we go.” Peter tugs, and the square doesn’t move. He brings his other hand up, kneeling on his back for better balance to make up for the lack of hand contact he has. He pulls once again with all his might and flies off as the box is pulled from Scorpions back.

The loud whir of Scorpions tail stops and Matt jumps away as it falls to the ground with a loud thump.

“NO.” Scorpion reels around to face the two men, and his tail whips behind him limply. “What did you do?” He shouts, running at the two with thundering footsteps.

“Go for the neck.” Matt mutters before running towards the man. Peter springs to the side, scaling up a wall for better view and access. He would have to move quickly, Scorpion seemed to be able to stop him better when Peter attacked from the air, but that was when he had the tail.

Peter jumps at the same time as Scorpion swings at Matt, throwing himself off balance for the slightest moment. Peter lands with a loud clang, wrapping his arms back around the man's neck.

He wouldn’t have to worry about the tail this time.

Unlike last time that he had wrapped his arm around his neck, he is met with resistance. He had put a protective piece in place. He tightens his grip and feels the metal bend under his arm.

Please don’t kill him. Please don’t kill him. Please don’t kill him.

He tightens his grip a little bit more and hears the creak of metal as it bends under him, digging into Scorpions neck. Scorpion gurgles, bringing his arms up to pull Peter’s away. Peter purses his lips to stop himself from screaming as Scorpion squeezes at his hand. He definitely broke some fingers, but Peter’s grip stays strong.

“C’mon Spider-Man, almost there.” Matt encourages, trying to get Scorpions arms away from Peter. Scorpion teeters backwards and Peter thinks he’s going to fall, but he ends up crushed between Scorpion and the wall of a building.

The building cracks under the force of Scorpion crashing against it. Peter’s back burns with each ram into the wall. He increases his pressure the slightest bit more and hears a pop.

Scorpion crumbles in a large metal pile moments later. Peter hops off, quickly rushing to Scorpions side.

“Pete, it’s okay we got him.” Peter shakes his head, trying to push Scorpion onto his back.

“I think I hurt him. I don’t think that pop was the metal around his neck.” Peter manages to flip Scorpion onto his back, taking his rapid wheezing breath into account.

“It wasn’t, c’mon Pete, the cops are here. Let’s go.” Peter stops as they leave to tell a cop about the injury, making sure that they pay attention to it before they take him away. Most likely to the raft.

Matt and Peter run along rooftops to get back, saving Peter’s webbing. Peter is quiet on the way back and Matt stops him when they get back to their roof.

“Peter it’s okay, I know you didn’t mean to hurt him.” Peter shakes his head.

“I should have known to hold back. I can always hold back, I was using enough pressure, I shouldn’t have increased it.” Peter says, his voice shaking. “I know he’s a bad guy, but what if that kills him.” He can feel his breath beginning to quicken in pace and he rubs at his chest.

“You didn’t kill him. A laryngeal injury at most. You did what you had to do to take him down, now let's go get patched.” Matt trails off, turning his head towards the building across from them. “Down.”

He pulls Peter down at the same time as a gun goes off. A bullet whizzes by overhead. Peter springs back up, quickly webbing over to the opposite roof and webbing up the man. Matt appears behind him moments later.

“Who are you? What do you want with Spider-Man?” Matt asks in his gravely Daredevil voice.

“I don’t want nuthin. That was for Scorpion.” The man laughs maniacally. Matt punches him quickly in the temple and the man crumples, at the same time more bullets rain down.

Various men were standing on buildings nearby, guns trained on them. Peter and Matt took them all down within ten minutes, but spent another half hour searching the buildings to make sure no one was left.

“How did they know where we were?” Peter asks once they're back in Matt’s apartment. They changed out of their outfits in the bathroom, the one room with curtains, to hide from anyone else that could be outside looking at them. Peter turns away from Matt as the two pull on clothes.

“They most likely followed us. I haven’t heard any suspicious heart beats around here, and I didn’t recognize any of those mens heartbeats.” Matt replies, pulling out the medkit. The two patch each other up. Peter wraps a few of his fingers that Scorpion had broken while Matt cleans and bandages his smaller cuts and scrapes.

His entire back was purple and blue. There wasn’t much to do about that, or the ankle sprain.

The two move to the couch after they bandage their wounds, now icing their bruises. Peter had a large ziplock of ice pressed to the right side of his face, which was now turning the same colour as his back and Matt’s own face. His eye was swollen shut. That would heal fast.

“He’s going to stay in prison this time. They’ll get the suit off of him and then he’s just a regular guy again.” Matt says, trying to reassure Peter. Peter in turn snorts.

“You’re also just a regular guy without your suit, so that’s not saying much.” Peter grumbles out, removing the ice from his face as the hand holding it in place was starting to numb. “Thank you for your help today.” Matt nods shortly.

“You should continue to tune into your other senses, maybe they’ll help with the spider ones.” Peter nods, putting the ice back into his face.

By the time he’d left Matt’s that night his eye was no longer swollen shut and his sprain had healed. Matt had taken the stitches out of his back and the skin itched uncomfortable.

He ate what was left in his fridge and cupboards that night, finally able to stomach food. He should be able to heal faster now that he actually has food in his body.

He wasn’t able to sleep well that night, which wasn’t unusual. Laying on his back was too painful and he never liked laying on his stomach, so he sat in his living room watching out the window.

He could have swore he saw more figures on the buildings across from his, but as soon as he blinked, they were gone.