Adrenaline is a strange thing. It can often be the key to one’s fight or flight instinct, to survival. However, you may also argue adrenaline is one of the main causes of what you can only describe as the placebo effect. The placebo effect, in its simplest form, is an illusion. Often, the lie your body betrays you with (helped along of course by adrenaline) is that you can’t breathe.
Have you ever felt like you’re having the air pulled out of your lungs? Like you’ve been winded but there’s no fix. Or have you ever put your t-shirt over your face and just...tried to take the biggest, deepest breaths you can? It’s unpleasant. And that’s exactly how Peter felt. However, there truly was something masking his face; the thick material of his handmade mask. It was a peculiar material that always left a smokey taste in his mouth. He was never sure if it was from the man who wore the clothes before him, the gunpowder fuelled fire of the bullets from his beanshooter, or the cloying scent of his cigarettes finally settling into the material. That’d be a strange realisation—to realise he’d been careering around as the Spider-Man for so long that it’d left its mark upon the clothes. Time was an oddity like that. It hadn’t even been a year since that day. The day Noir had found the shredded carcass of his uncle. It was approaching, of course. As winter drew nearer and the days got shorter, things would become a little sadder once more in the Parker household...households, to be truly correct.
Responsibilities. Peter always had responsibilities, as he often reminded himself. *’If there is too much power, then it is the responsibility of the people to take it away.’* However, the people never truly seemed to understand that. Nobody understood New York better than Peter, not now. That specific attitude often landed the boy in the messes he got in. However, today was different. This was a mess of his own making, and nobody else’s.
Inky black webs hauled the boy up onto a rooftop, where he perched, gun still firmly glued to one gloved hand, the other helping him keep balance. His hand burned around the pistol, his ears ringing from the litter of shots he’d fired, finishing the job he’d started. Peter never spoke during the executions. It made the goons feel less human. People would often ask ‘how? How could he do it?’ Not to his face, of course. However, Peter always felt liable to answer. ‘I'm an investigative reporter. You know what that means? It means I collect facts, and I figure out the story. And when I determine who the bad guys in the story are, I punish them.’ That was always he reply. You could count on the constant like clockwork.
With a hand tentatively resting against his bruised ribs, Peter fell back numbly onto his keister, deftly scuttling backwards to the best of his ability, until he felt his back hit the cold, rain sodden water tower. Then, and only then did he focus on trying to regain the air that’d been knocked from him in the emergency exit that he’d taken, opting to jump out a window. His chest burnt as his shoulders heaved, a gloved hand tapping lightly against the gravely roof, almost giving himself a beat to breathe to. Yet the breaths never...came. That was the only way Noir could describe it. Through the thick material of the mask, Pete tried to take in steady breaths, in an effort to combat the steadily growing pit of dread in his stomach. He knew he could’ve done better, so much better. Instead of extra information, new leads, Peter was left with pain in his already busted side, and anger. Only with himself mind you.
Resting his swimming head against the large metal object behind him, Pete closed his eyes, only to be greeted with images much less pleasant than his rain spotted goggles. His uncle, Urich, the molls and goons he just rubbed out: all images that bounced around his mind. They felt tainted. Much like nightmares he used to have of his parents. As a child Peter could never imagine how or why people would kill other people the way they did, and so he’d have the most frightful nightmares as his young mind filled in the details.
Eyes snapping open, Peter couldn’t move, he couldn’t quite breathe either as the scenario played out in front of him, like an awful movie Benjamin had forced him to. Vulture lay dead on the ground, the gun burned much like it did a few moments ago, but this was different. May was there, she looked so disappointed, so so disappointed. She called him an animal, she shouted at him, she took his gun. But this...was different. The memory didn’t end when he left his old home. His mind wouldn’t be that kind as the boy’s vision tunnelled and he pulled his legs closer to his body, just in case. In case of what? He wasn’t sure. Part of him was half convinced the dead Vulture on the ground would grab his legs and have his way with him too.
A soft wheeze left the boy as he fumbled with his hands against his head, beginning to shiver a little. Not only from the cold, but what could only be described as fear too. With eyes squeezed so tightly shut it hurt, Peter kept his hands firm against his head, not thinking clear enough to remove the mask, the rational part left knowing deep down it was worth suffering to hide his identity. Tears scalded like acid as they leaked slowly down his cheeks, soaking into the mask. The detective tried to speak, he tried to scream, but nothing would come out, only the occasional wheeze, or maybe a soft sound of discomfort.
Maybe this was his punishment. He found the stories, the criminals and then he punished them, but maybe this was his karma. Maybe being trapped like this, unable to breathe, see, *think* was enough. He’d know next time. Learn more, shoot less. Well...that was the logic, anyway. He wouldn’t learn, Peter never learnt. Because it was what he deemed his job, his purpose. Punishment or not, this would eventually subside of course, and the boy would pick himself up, head spinning from a lack of sustenance and he’d numbly guide himself home, barely registering his surroundings. Peter did this to himself, he knew that, but it was what he deserved. He had to learn there was no room for mistakes.