Vexillum

Peter is exhausted. 

It’s past 4am, way later than he’s usually outside. But when you hear an assumed robbery happening in the alley connected to your dorm window you can’t help but show up anyway. 

He keeps blinking the sleep out of his eyes while listening to the attacker’s standard spiel. 

It’s like a mixed up version of the five stages of grief combined with a ‘beginner villain handbook’.

Denial: “Bro, Spider-Man, Pal. I swear this isn’t what it looks like.

Bargaining: “Just let me go this once man. I really need this, you don’t understand.”

Acceptance: “No, I’m sorry. I get it, you probably have to take me in now.”

Depression: “This life isn’t made for me. Nothing ever goes  my way. Why can’t I ever have what I need? I just need the money, I’m in so much debt, man. Maybe I deserve it. I probably do, I’m not good enough for it, am I?"

And finally, “Who are you to judge though! Sitting on your fancy ass webs in your probably multi million dollar suit. I’ll  show you feeling poor, you entitled piece of shit!” Anger.

It seeps off the guy as he tries to attack with all his might. The victim has long run away. The bad guy being stuck with only Spider-Man as his companion. 

The fight is lasting longer than normal. He doesn’t even have the previously mentioned webs with him. They ran out somewhere around 11pm which is when he decided to stop his patrol and go to sleep.

If only he could have stayed in his bed tonight.

The drowsiness is dragging him down and slowing down his reaction time. 

The villain is getting hits in here and there, as if his spidey sense is on snooze as well. 

He’s lucky the guy seems to be either inexperienced or terrified of his own weapon. He’s holding quite a big pitch black gun. He hasn’t attempted to fire it yet though, just madly swinging it around hoping to hit Spider-Man wherever he can.

And hit him he does. Another gush of air is pushed out of Peter’s lungs as the steel gun makes contact with his stomach. 

He wants to groan knowing he’ll definitely feel that during class in the morning but instead uses the force behind the gun against his body to spin himself around and behind the attacker. Pinning both arms to the man’s back and searching through his suit pocket for the tie-rips he quickly grasped from his desk before the fight. 

The exhaustion is making his eyes swim before closing in too long blinks and he connects the tie-rips mostly on instinct instead of sight. Pushing the man down against the wall he moves back and dusts himself off to check himself over. 

He’s almost ready to call it a job well done, go back to bed and call 911 anonymously when the sound of a shot rings out. 

Surprised, he looks up at the origin of the noise. 

The tied down man is in fact not so tied down. He’s standing up with both hands free, two tie-rips laying loose on the ground. The man’s hands are shaking wildly as his gaze flicks between the gun and Spider-Man’s shoulder. 

Confused, Peter tries to look at his own shoulder in return.

He’s met with a river of red blood flowing down from what he can barely spot is a bullet shaped hole in the centre of his shoulder. 

The man’s face looks almost more pained than what he is currently feeling, but with every beat of his heart the pain increases. 

He curses and swipes at the tie-rips with his good arm. 

In a way unsurprisingly, the criminal holds his arms forward willingly. 

This time paying good attention to how he binds them together, he secures the attacker to a lamp post with the help of a few extra tie-rips. Then he removes the gun from the vicinity by placing it atop a sign from a small convenience store that’s mounted on the wall.

He’ll have to alert the police of that placement now too. 

He grunts goodbye and sprints out of the alley.

Spider-Man leaving from his window, but climbing back through it after the sound of a gunshot is probably even more suspicious but it’ll have to do. The best he can do is find another alleyway to climb up the building to the roof, and descend to his window on the correct side from there. 

He’s barely three paces up the wall when he feels his body letting go. 

In more ways than one, his body betrays him. His body heavy with exhaustion and pain, his mind riddled with pain and sleep, they all shut down at once. 

He doesn’t even feel the pavement as he hits the ground. 

Hard. 

***

The next thing he knows is a blur of confusing things.

His body is rocking around as if on a derailed rollercoaster. Whispering sentences float in and out of his ears like the hushed conversations his classmates have during boring lectures. 

Come to think of it, these voices sound almost exactly like that. Young and secretive.

Peter forces his eyes to open and is met with the bright lights of his building’s hallways. 

Wait–his building. How did he get inside?

That question is quickly answered when another stab of pain shoots through his shoulder as the hands under his armpits jostle him around another corner. 

It’s a testament of how out of it he is, because you’d think Spider-Man of all people would have noticed being held up by the arms and ankles earlier. 

They finally stop moving in front of a door, giving his shoulder some much needed rest. He focuses on the clinging of keys and tries to find a clue to where he is exactly. 

He catches sight of the room number plate as the two strangers move him into the apartment. 125, vaguely he remembers that the people studying medicine house on this floor of the building, and so he feels safe enough to close his eyes for a few more moments and try to block out the pain.

They shoot back open moments later when he’s startled by a loud shout. 

“Holy fuck, is that Spider-Man?”

“Jesus Cody, shut up. Do you want the whole building to know that he’s here?” 

“Wait, so that’s actually him? The real deal–Oh shit is he okay?”

A sarcastic snort echoes through the small room. “Of course he’s not fucking okay. Now move your ass, we need to lay him down.”

True to the speaker at his feet’s words, he’s swiftly moved over and manoeuvred onto a soft bed.

He mostly dazes in and out for a while as he feels the students examine his wound. They don’t even make a move towards his mask so for now Spider-Man’s content to just lay on the bed and listen along to what they’re discussing around him. 

He picks up some small sentences that intrigue him about the room's habitants and their dynamics. 

“Babe, can you get me some gloves?”

“Do you think the wound edges look inflamed?”

“Wait!” The only other male in the room perks up. Peter can still feel the eyes boring into him since the other boy found out Spider-Man was in his dorm room. “Should I get the antibiotics we got for the practical exam at the end of the year?”

“It doesn’t appear that the bullet is left inside. We can treat him with nonoperative procedures and without worrying about plumbism.”

“Damn Kells, English next?” 

“Cody we literally learned this last month. There’s no bullet left inside so there’s low risk of lead poisoning.”

“So.. no antibiotics?”

Heavy silence lingers in the air for a moment as the students stare each other in the eye. “How did you even get into this course? We still need the antibiotics, who knows what bullet it was, where it came from and what it has touched. Not to forget the fact that we found him on the ground with a hole in his shoulder. Say hello to bacteria.”

“Okay, how was I supposed to know that he was on the grimy pavement? You two suddenly just showed up with The Spider-Man and I’m supposed to guess you found him snoozing on the floor?” he practically shouts while madly pointing at the famous hero. 

“Just get the damn medication.” Kelly huffs out before turning to her practically silent girlfriend. “Umh, can you get my textbook? It’s in my bag. Page 89, GSW’s and Trauma injuries.”

Peter’s quite sure he should feel mildly concerned that they’re looking him over from text books but his spidey-sense is humming contently, more focused on the risk from the bullet wound than the people in the room and he decides to close his eyes and let the students figure it out as he tries to stop his head from spinning. 

They seem like nice people. The most studious pair of them all, Kelly apparently, is a pretty girl with her strawberry blonde hair parted into two dutch braids. 

He faintly grasps that the other girl who found him outside is Kelly’s girlfriend. He hasn’t heard her name yet but in a way she reminds him a bit of MJ. Watching, observing. She too has those dark eyes that seem to stare into your soul, which Peter had looked straight into as she lowered his upper body onto the bed earlier. 

The last person in the room is the fanboy Cody. Who seems a bit out of it but Peter can’t blame him. It’s not everyday that Spider-Man shows up in your dorm room at– he can’t even remember how early in the morning. 

His thoughts get halted abruptly as he feels Kelly poke around the gaping wound in his shoulder and he hisses to let his dissatisfaction known. 

“Sorry Spidey, I’m just checking for any bone fragments. But it’s all looking good so all I’m doing now is applying stitches and giving you a good amount of anti-bacterial medication. Sounds good?”

He simply hums back in reply and lets his tense shoulder sag back into the soft blanket he’s on top of. 

“Weird place for Spider-Man to go K.O” The so far silent girl suddenly says. Yep, definitely like MJ.

“Cleo! You can’t just say that, dude! He’s a superhero.” he hears Cody say incredulously. 

“Good superhero’s pass out in a hospital. Not random alley ways around a college campus.” she huffs back. Somewhere he feels like he should be offended but hey, what can you do?

“Good point.” Kelly murmurs. He briefly opens his eyes to see her spool a threat through the classic stitching needle and immediately closes his eyes again. 

The pain is really getting to him now, everything in his head is swimming more and more. While he’s quite accustomed to bad injuries it’s still never a fun time. And usually he could just rally up his aunt and pass out on the couch at home while she helped. 

Now everything is elevating the pressure in his shoulder. From the needle to the strangers around him in a semi-familiar room. From what he saw the space on different floors isn’t much different at all. 

In his ridiculous state that’s a very important thought and so he opens his eyes again to study the room around him, instead of the situation at hand. 

“Should we expect Spider-Man to show up around here, around NYU, more often?” He faintly registers the feelings of the needle being looped back into him but is so focused on the fridge, which is definitely bigger than his which is absolutely unfair, and he hums out a quick assenting answer. 

“Should have guessed.” Cleo says from somewhere else in the room. He moves his gaze around until he lands on the girl sitting in a spinning desk chair with a laptop on her lap. 

Peter catches a glimpse of what looks like the flag project registration website. There’s a lot of red on the tab she clicked open. From his position on the bed he laughs to himself. Red, the same colour that’s still coming out of him.

Funny. 

“Wait, NYU? Spider-Man? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Cody’s shout is the last thing he hears as the red of the laptop screen and the red on his suit, the fabric and the blood all blend into one. 

He blacks out before he can think about the implications of the frantic words. 

***

Spider-Man blinks awake what feels like not much later. 

There’s someone leaning over him, appearing to study him through the layer of spandex covering his entire body. 

“Hey, dude. Spidey. Time to wake up.”

His vision steadies and he focuses in on the face of Kelly that he’s getting more and more familiar with by now. 

“We gotta go to class soon.” She says, concern and hesitance visible in her voice.

“Kinda assume you do too!” Cleo shouts unbothered from the other side of the room, still hunkered down behind the laptop. 

“Umh, class. What. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stammers out. 

He’s met with a steel hard gaze peaking above the laptop screen. “Sure you don’t.”

“Anyway!” His attention is redirected to Kelly who sits down beside him. “We’re aware you got some healing powers and I need to check if the antibiotics are doing anything. Can I touch you to unwrap the bandage?”

It’s kind of funny that she asks now, at the very end but it doesn’t bother him much. She did really help him out. So Peter just nods his head and holds his arm out a bit which thankfully doesn’t hurt at all. 

Maybe he can actually still go to class today after all. 

“I assume you’re feeling better? Nothing concerning going on in that head of yours that needs to get checked out?” She asks after removing the wrapping and examining the partly healed entry wound. 

“Nah, Don’t worry. You guys did a good job. I feel perfectly fine.”

He sees Cleo open her mouth, probably to make some smart comment but another voice beats her. 

“Okay since you’re doing better now and all, dude, can I please get your signature. Or a picture. Or both! Yes bro, can I get a signed selfie? I’m sure our printer has some colour ink left.” 

The fanboy’s outburst leaves him dazed for a second, processing the rambling of words, before a laughing wheeze escapes him. 

Truthfully, he doesn’t get as many fans lately. It’s lots of thank you’s and bright smiles. Many people stare of course, and camera’s always follow him wherever Spider-Man goes but the most people actually still freaking out over him are kids. Small humans staring up at him in childlike wonder before spouting rapid fire questions that are so strange, they always make him think back to when Ned found out about his powers. 

For most teens and adults, Spider-Man has just become a staple. A constant. Someone who is just always there and that they have seen at his high’s and low’s. He’s never been reserved about fan interaction such as pictures and hugs. And thus he realises that most people probably don’t marvel as much at him anymore. He’s just spidey for most people. Not a big deal superhero with uncanny powers. 

“I think you might need to get a move on for class soon, and most printers are devils that take as long as they want. But I can give you a picture and a signature seperately.” He shoots a quick finger gun at the boy and Cody reacts so boldly he might as well have been actually shot by it with the way he starts jumping around.

“This is the best day ever!”

“That makes only one of us.” Peter replies, wincing as only looking at Cody’s movements makes his shoulder flare up again. “But perhaps I can do something for my awesome nurses too. How about a written statement of the great care I received from your practical applications on your textbook studies? Would that help your studies?” 

After a few stammering replies he sets out to do just that. First he takes a picture with all three students, and then with just Cody before singing his biology textbook of all things. 

He leaves the boy to go crazy over the item while he receives a notepad and writes up his thank you. 

It’s only a few minutes later that they wave goodbye and he’s delivered to the elevator in which he presses the button to go to the ground floor. 

The moment the doors close though he also activates the button of his floor. Time for a quick shower and meal before class for the day. 

He’s grateful for the great care performed by his fellow college students. Without them he never would have made it to biochem today.

***

It’s what feels like any other day as Peter makes his way home from the school ground’s. His backpack is a minimal weight on his fully healed shoulder as he practically bounces home. 

Ned has recently purchased animal crossing so they planned to play on the switch together and visit each other’s islands. He can’t wait for a relaxing day of video games and talking to his best friend. 

His plans change though when he arrives at his apartment building. 

There, waving in the wind next to a window on the first floor is a red flag. The helping hand flag for medical professionals.

It’s billowing in the wind without a care in the world. Without knowing the heavy feelings it’s unfurling inside Peter’s chest. 

He vaguely remembers parts of the conversations when he stayed in room 125 with a shoulder injury only five days ago. 

And already, those kind students have signed up to help him, again. He didn’t traumatise them or ruin their school day. 

The opposite, they’re inviting him in again, may he ever need it. 

It’s a good feeling. One that also brings the certainty that he definitely went to the right school after all. 

Sure he misses Ned and Mj, but great people can be found anywhere.

New York never lets him down. 

Changing his plans he takes a last look at the flag before making his way into the building.

He has some tweets to read before calling his friend. 

And if three young adults see a random guy staring at their window’s new official decoration a moment too long, no one has to know. Because that’s what New York is all about lately.

Looking out for one another.