Dark Horse.

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Spider-Man had just helped The Avengers rid lower Manhattan of a bunch of explosion happy flying jellyfish looking creatures that blew up if they touched anything that wasn't one of their own kind.. The jellyfish looking things had been brushing against buildings and cars and blowing up things everywhere. It had been Spider-Man's idea that had saved the day..

Spider-Man had even been trapped under a building for a bit trying to lift it off of trapped Civilians..

How did Spider-Man get repaid for all his efforts to help keep the City he loved safe?

Oh The Normal Everyday Citizens of New York mostly LOVED Spider-Man..

But..

An "Alphabet Agency" called SHIELD sicced the cops and all The Avengers on him..

And The Avengers seemed to enjoy coming after Spider-Man with everything they had and never held back...

And Spider-Man pretty much for the most part always slipped their grasps by doing something either sheerly brilliant or sheerly insane or sheerly (seemingly) suicidal or all the above..

But what The Avengers didn't know..

Spider-Man DID hold back and didn't use everything he had in his efforts to get away.. Spider-Man never used his full strength or showed off every single bit of skill he had when it came to fighting and he had never really had to show them the true extent of his enhanced speed or reflexes..

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But... Then... One day came..

When Spider-Man had pretty much had enough of all their crap and all the injuries they purposefully inflicted on him in attempts to "bring him in" and honestly there had been times when they had done severe enough harm that Spider-Man had almost died from what they had done to him and how often they attacked him and barely ever left him time to recuperate .. and honestly Spider-Man could have possibly tolerated all those abuses as he knew The Avengers all thought they were doing the right thing following SHIELD orders and coming after him with a vengeance to try to take him into SHIELD custody.. but.. Spider-Man's tolerance for The Avengers and their BS dwindled to absolute zero when something The Avengers did put Civilians in danger..

There were fires in the city.. An entire apartment complex had caught on fire and then caught nearby buildings on fire until in a horrific chain reaction an entire block was all on fire.

Now luckily a lot of the businesses on the block had closed for the day...

But there were also several residential buildings and complexes on the block..

Hundreds, if not thousands, of lives, in mortal peril.

Spider-Man swung in, his suit was just some spandex that had been sewn together and then patched up with whatever materials Spidey could find whenever damage was done to the suit.. and there were a lot of patches of mismatched fabric quilting his suit together especially ever since The Avengers had been injuring him and thus damaging his suit on a basis of nearly every other day..

Anyway.. Basically.. Spidey's suit was not one hundred percent fire-retardant and Spider-Man did not have any kind of air filtration in his mask to keep him from breathing in dust, debris and worst the very deadly smoke.. in all honesty.. Spider-Man had just about as much protection from the flames, smoke and other hazards going for him as anyone that was trapped in any of the multiple buildings that were all on fire.. the only thing Spider-Man had that was in his favor that not everyone else in this situation would have were his enhanced healing abilities, his enhanced senses and his abilities to stick to and climb on any surface .. and he was going into one burning building after another without any kind of firefighter gear or respiratory aid or protection..

It was starting to wear him down.. plus his Enhanced Senses were all over the place because all of the sirens from more firetruck as they arrived, all the beeping smoke alarms in all the buildings near the fires, all the noises of people scrambling to get firehoses and ladders and inflatable rescue mats going and all of the screaming... so many people were screaming..

So very many people were screaming..

Some people on the street were screaming or crying or wailing over lost memories and lost belongings, some were screaming over loved ones who they didn't know if whether or not they were inside any of the fires and some who did know there was a loved one actually still trapped in the flaming buildings were shrieking, screaming, wailing, pleading ..

And then there were the screams and crying of people inside the burning buildings..

Spider-Man's enhanced senses were scattered as he tried to help clear one building after another, his focus narrowing down and pinpointing on whatever heartbeats were closest and blocking out the sounds of the nearby pained wailing of people he couldn't yet get to because he only had so many hands and he was going level by level, room by room, no door went unopened, not even kitchen or bathroom cabinets as he had found a child in one cabinet under a kitchen sink, the child had hidden there to try to get away from flames and smoke and be near to a source of water as the pipes under the sink had a leak in them and the kid was smart by constantly wetting themselves down with the available water and keeping a piece of cloth damp and using it to loosely cover their nose and mouth until rescue had arrived.. but Spider-Man doubted a firefighter would have thought to look there, Spider-Man almost hadn't, if he hadn't heard the child's heartbeat the kid might never have been found and saved in time.. So Spider-Man left no door unopened. He looked under beds, behind couches, in closets, in cabinets and in attics and basements..

Level by level, room by room, door by door, building by building.. Spider-Man was leaving no stone unturned as he desperately tried to save one life after another..

And again, he was indeed being worn down .. he had inhaled a lot of smoke and been burned in a lot of places..

But he wouldn't give up or quit..

Then The Avengers had shown up.

Iron Man had snatched Spider-Man out if the window of a building just as Spider-Man handed a child out of that same window to a firefighter on a ladder..

"Hey,.. Read the room, Tin Can! Now is not the time!" Spider-Man had exclaimed as he broke free from Iron Man's grasp, fell onto a rooftop then bolted to try to go back into the building he was just in, he had only gotten halfway up the building doing his checks like he was and there were still people trapped inside, he could hear their heartbeats and their screaming and pleading for help, the roof of the building wouldn't last much lo get before it collapsed inward.. Firefighters were also inside getting as many people as possible out but even the fire departments were all stretched thin with as many fires were happening on the block at once and even worse the wind had picked up and buildings across the street were in danger, all it would take would be just one stray ember getting caught aloft in the wind then landing in the wrong place.. plus if the buildings on the other side of the street caught fire, all the firefighters and their vehicles could wind up trapped between two walls of literal flame.. they needed to get everyone out of all these buildings that were already on fire and evacuate all buildings that were in danger of still catching fire if the wind kept up like it was..

But before Spider-Man could leap off the roof and get over to the building he was just snatched out of, he was struck in the side by an arrow..

The force of being struck knocked him a bit sideways and his trajectory changed just as he had crossed the edge and so he wound up falling half a story to a fire escape on the side of the building he had just tried to jump from.. he hadn't been able to catch himself with a web because he refused to use his very limited source of webs for anything other than rescuing the people from the fire, he knew he was close to being out of webbing and he wouldn't use the resource to save himself when he needed it to help save others.. and half a story wasn't even thay far of a fall, a cakewalk really compared to the heights he's fallen from before...

But he had fallen in such a way that had showed the arrow in deeper.. which.. ow..

Knowing he probably had a punctured lung on top of every other injury he's racked up over the weeks, several of which still hadn't healed because he wasn't able to eat enough to fully fuel his enhanced metabolism, Spider-Man knew he couldn't afford to mess around and toy with The Avengers or go easy on them today.. not if they were interfering with him saving lives and also adding on to his list of injuries and making his attempts to save more lives even more difficult.. No.. Spider-Man needed to end this here and now and hopefully dissuade The Avengers from tryin to mess with him ever again especially since The Avengers were clearly willing to endanger the lives of citizens that were already in mortal peril if they didn't get more help.. The Avengers should have set aside any beef they thought they had with Spider-Man and helped with saving Civilians.. but in going after Spider-Man and not seeming to even notice the situation that was happening with the citizens of the city.. well it showed their priorities were following orders.. not saving lives..

So Spider-Man had to end this, whatever it was that The Avengers thought they had against him and show them that they never had and never would have a chance to take him in to whatever "authorities" they thought had a right to make such a call.. he had tried to show them he wasn't a threat, he had tried to show them he was on the good guys' side of things.. Now he was going to have to show them that he had been holding back this entire time.. show them that he could have ended any single one of them at any given time if had chosen to.. he had to show them that he was now done with the games, with the goofing off and playing around .. that if they tried to come up against him ever again that he would no longer be holding back.. they wanted to use everything they had and go all out on him.. it was time he started returning the favor and show them that even starving, injured, sleep deprived, and in a generally weakened state, he could and would, kick all their asses.

He needed to do it quickly too.. he couldn't waste time.. there were lives on the line..

Spider-Man ripped the arrow out, which was probably inadvisable, but Spider-Man had a better chance of fully healing if the arrow was removed than if he left it in.. he winced at the pain but he still got back on his feet because people were depending on him..

The fight went pretty brutally on both ends for a few brief moments. Thor was using his Hammer, his strength and his lightning powers, Captain America and Bucky Barnes were using their enhanced strength and Vibranium weapons, Iron Man was using his practically indestructible Vibranium suit and Repulsion Blasters. Black Widow had her fightingskills and Widow Bite Tasers and Hawkeye had his bow and arrows and an aim that rarely ever missed..

Spider-Man admittedly took a lot of damage.. but..

He had cracked Iron Man's gauntlets, boots and Arc Reactor, basically disabling Iron Man's ability to move or attack, he had caught one of Hawkeye's arrows and threw it at the man and grazed the side of the man's face causing a slightly bleeding wound above Hawkeye's eye, but then moments later the arrow deployed some kind of knockout gas that had been meant for Spider-Man and Hawkeye was down for the count with barely even a scratch to show for it.. Black Widow got tasted with her own Widow Bites after Spidey caught her hands and turned her clenched hands into her own body and basically made her shock her ownself with her own weapons, knocking her out as well..

Then Bucky Barnes had thrown a punch at him.. Spider-Man had caught the fist in one hand like it was no more than a lightly tossed foam ball meant for babies, then he crushed that fist in his hand.. and then twisted the former Winter Soldier's arm until it was just a twisted mess of wrecked metal while kicking the crap out of the man with his knees and feet.. Captain America had thrown his shield at Spider-Man probably to try to defend Bucky.. but Spider-Man had caught it with his free hand.. he kicked Bucky away like a ragdoll ..

With Bucky, Iron Man, Captain America and Thor watching, Spider-Man removed his gloves, then grabbed the shield and held it in front of him then proceeded to roll the shield up like a newspaper while showing there was no gimmick to his gloves or his suit, that his powers didn't come from the suit at all (his web shooters being the only exception but he wasn't about to advertise that).. it was all, always him..

He tosses the rolled up shield at Captain America's feet..

Thor finally initiated an attack.. Lifting his hammer high and flying at Spider-Man..

Spider-Man blocked the blow singlehandedly with a purposefully bored look on his masked face as he disarmed Thor and made a show of easily lifted the hammer into his owm hand ..

Thor was on the ground looking up at Spider-Man while Captain America still stood staring angrily at the Spider Themed hero and breathing heavily as Iron Man flailed around on the ground in multiple failed attempts to stand..

"You know.." Spider-Man said holding the hammer up "I heard that the only way someone can even lift this hammer is they have to be worthy.." Spider-Man lifted the hammer high as if he was going to strike "So .. What does this tell you?" He held the hammer in that way then rapidly brought it down.. Thor held his hands up to protect his head.. but the hammer didn't make contact, Spider-Man had stopped just a few inches from the top of Thor's head.. "No.. Dude.. seriously.. I am actually expecting an answer.."

"It tells me you're worthy.." Thor replied..

"Hmmm.." Spider-Man said as he lifted the hammer once again and brought it down and Thor once again went to shield himself with his arms.. but the hammer landed on the ground between his knees, Spider-Man still held the handle "really?.." Spider-Man asked "Because I was hoping your answer would be that, it told you that you and your buddies should never try to mess with me ever again.. especially when I'm busy trying to save lives.. Come after me again while I'm busy saving people and next time I will wield your hammer again but next time I won't stop the hammer from striking .. Just know I always could've done any of this or worse at any given moment but I've always held back.. even today I held back.. next time you or your friends come at me while I'm trying to save people I won't hold back.. "

Spider-Man turned and left and continued pulling one Civilian after another out of the fires.. he wouldn't stop until every life was saved..

When Spider-Man looked back up to the rooftop where he had fought The Avengers all of The Avengers had left.. Spider-Man hoped they would all take his words seriously..

Because he had meant every single one of them..