disasters and debacles
In truth, Peter ended up enjoying the meal so much that he forgot about Genevieve’s supposed terror threat.
With the rush of working at SI and moving to MIT, Peter had forgotten what it was like to be around his high school friends. It wasn’t that he missed the people themselves, to put it perfectly honestly, it was more that he missed the way that he fit. Peter had never been one to fit in but after everything he had been through with his Midtown classmates there was a sense of familiarity that came with being around them and Peter hadn’t realised quite how much he missed the feeling.
Everything had changed so much in the last year and for once, not having to make a conscious effort to introduce himself, explain his degree and his interests was a relief. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t enjoyed a new place and some new faces, but it grew tiring. At least around this table there was history, knowledge and experience, regardless of whether it was all good or bad.
At present, they were nearing the end of dessert. The assorted tarts and elaborate miniature cakes had come out on tiered trays to be shared across the table. Peter nibbled at the edge of a small cheesecake topped with a strawberry and some sort of gold dusting that he was pretty sure was edible. The whole meal had been so filling that he couldn’t bring himself to eat much dessert – which was unusual for Peter whose appetite was second to none at the compound.
MJ was talking to Brad who, annoyingly, was sat opposite them on the long table. Peter tried not to find him too irritating because Brad was being remarkably ok tonight. It was difficult to forget the number of unwanted advances he had made on MJ after graduation, but Peter knew that she could handle herself. She’d made it clear to Brad exactly what she was and wasn’tlooking for.
Brad had probably noticed how touchy MJ had been with Peter as the night went on. It was small things, touching the place where his hair met his neck, grasping his hand, bumping her shoulder against his and letting it sit there. Peter wasn’t sure if it was the heating inside the restaurant, but his face felt quite warm.
Brad had brought out his phone and was stretching it out over the table so that MJ could see the photos he had taken atop Sydney Harbour Bridge, having climbed it during his trip to Australia in August. MJ took the phone from him and looked closer at the view.
“That’s seriously cool, I’d love to see a view like that,” MJ mused handing the phone back to him.
Peter had been watching there exchange out of the corner of his eye whilst trying to pay attention to whatever idiotic nonsense Flash was spouting.
That wasn’t really fair, Flash had been extraordinarily reasonable throughout the night. There was nothing remotely quotable that Peter could pass onto Ned which was both fortunate and unfortunate at the same time. He knew that Ned was upset he couldn’t make it and having to work on things for class definitely wouldn’t be helping. Instead, Peter sent a photo of some of the desserts and chuckled at the photo Ned sent back, a terrible selfie in which he was knocking his head against the desk with the caption ‘bring some back for me?’
‘we have cheesecake at home – this probably isn’t any better’ Peter typed back. It was a lie, the cheesecake here was definitely better than whatever they had in the fridge. As he waited for a reply Peter flicked through his apps, eventually coming to land on the weather app. It was better than it had been in the last two days and there was supposed to be brilliant visibility of the New York skyline. Peter was hoping he’d be back in the city at some point to see snow.
Brad was still enthralling MJ with his tales of Australia and visiting the Great Barrier Reef – which interested MJ immensely. Peter knew that she wanted to be able to visit before the beautiful coral reef was bleached and destroyed by climate change.
As they were already in lower Manhattan, Peter decided to do a quick google search of the best place to get a view of the city on a night like this. Naturally, the first, and closest, landmark to pop up was the Manhattan Bridge. It was only a fifteen-minute walk and Peter was sure that they’d have almost as an amazing view from the top as one might have from Sydney Harbour bridge.
Peter lingered on the fence about the idea, it was stupid to be jealous of the long conversation (that he knew was perfectly harmless) between Brad and MJ. But in truth Peter did really want to give MJ a bit of a show, she had seen him swinging around the city and had seen him on the news, but he wanted to show her what he was capable of as Peter Parker, not Spider-Man.
So when it came time to wrap up and Flash was pulled away to add the meal to his family tab (or however these things were managed – Peter wasn’t really knowledgeable in fine dining), Peter hung onto MJ’s elbow so that they were a few steps behind everybody getting ready to leave.
“Hey,” he said, and she squeezed his arm in return, hooking her elbow with his.
“Everything good?” MJ asked.
“Yeah, I just had this idea and the weather’s so nice and I thought it would be kind of cool, you know skyline – good view…” He was rambling.
“You gonna tell me what any of that was about?” MJ said gesturing to his stumbling but smiled affectionately and tugged him closer.
“Sorry… I just thought maybe because it’s such a nice night and,” Peter looked at his phone, “it’s only 9:45, that we might do a little exploring of Manhattan, go to the bridge, get a nice view of the skyline since it’s such a clear night.”
“Maybe head up a little higher than the general public,” Peter whispered quietly by her ear, not intending it to be as suggestive as it sounded.
MJ’s mouth quirked upwards as she looked sideways at Peter, trying to gage what he was suggesting. Peter bit his lip, the back of his neck warming in embarrassment.
“Alright,” she said grinning as they made it to the front of the restaurant and attendants helped them to their coats. “A detour to the Manhattan Bridge sounds great!”
“Manhattan Bridge?” Said an annoying voice from behind them as Peter finished pulling on his coat, he tried not to throw his head back too dramatically as he heaved a sigh.
MJ was the one to reply, “Yeah, actually Peter and I were just going to go walk down to Manhattan Bridge and take some photos.”
“At this time of night?” Flash asked raising his eyebrows, “that bridge gets kind of dodgy.”
Peter wasn’t sure what Flash’s interpretation of ‘dodgy’ was – probably joggers wearing Target sneakers instead of Adidas. Or god forbid – they run with cords attaching their earbuds to their phones rather than Airpods! Whatever the other boy meant; Peter was quite sure that if he could handle hordes of Thanos’ forces – he’d be fine with a few shady people on a bridge.
“We’ll be fine, thanks Flash,” Peter said, trying not to grit his teeth and managed a smile.
“No, seriously I insist,” Flash said as he smiled a thanks to the man holding the door as the fifteen of them emerged out onto the chilly streets. “The limo was going to be going in that direction anyway, so I can take you that far at least and anyone else who wants to come.”
“Come where?” someone asked as they all crowded the sidewalk. A few people had waved and left already, those who remained were moving around and trying to get warm in the chill of the night air.
“Manhattan bridge, it’s a nice night so what about a little soul searching?” Flash said raising his hands and as if he had some sort of magical power a sleek limousine pulled up to the curb beside them.
“This is mad.” Peter wasn’t mad about the limousine; it was more so about his date with MJ being turned into a group trip. Peter had terrible luck with field trips.
“I’m down,” Brad said.
Of course, Peter thought, of course Brad is ‘down for it’.
There were a few others who echoed consensus and, in the end, there was a total of eight, including himself who piled into the limo and disappeared behind tinted windows.
Peter almost felt sure that Flash had somehow planned all this – but he himself had only thought of the idea half an hour ago so that wasn’t possible. But the limo was stocked with food and sodas to pour into little champagne flutes.
Peter had hoped for a swift fifteen-minute walk through the streets of lower Manhattan, with MJ at his side and their breath puffing in the air. They’d probably hold hands and stay close, invisible to the world, just another couple on a date on a Friday night.
Instead Peter found himself squished to Flash’s side in the back seat of the limo whilst MJ sat on the longer seat next to Brad. Why was this beginning to feel too much like he was back in high school? Not that any of their field trips had started in limo’s after a very expensive meal, that was for sure.
It was a short drive, but Flash still made sure to have his driver put music on and encouraged everyone to have a good time whilst they could, passing around soda and snacks. There was definitely something different about Flash this time around. When Peter looked back to the Flash he knew before the snap he was still as obnoxious and annoying but it had turned into something more desperate, as though he longed for his classmates approval in a way he never had before, or at least not that Peter had noticed. It certainly didn’t make him feel any more sympathetic when Flash started leaning across him and trying to talk to Betty who was sat at Peter’s right.
The fresh air was a cool relief when they finally made it outside to where the driver had stopped at the base of the Manhattan Bridge. With everyone out, breath puffing before them, they gradually began walking to the pedestrian part of the towering structure.
Peter ducked out of Flash’s way as he began to lead the way, tracking back to squeeze next to MJ and pointedly ignoring the annoyed look that Brad cast him with a look of his own. Reluctantly Brad peeled off from them and returned to the rest of the group.
MJ pressed closer to Peter and linked their arms together.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said squeezing her hand. “This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“I know,” MJ said quietly, “we can just entertain Flash’s whim and split off from them later.”
“I know I could show you a great view from the top,” Peter said quietly looking up as they stepped out onto the pedestrian bridge. The roar of cars and the occasional train was frustratingly loud, but it wasn’t all that bad and aided in hiding their conversation from the curious ears of their classmates. Based on the sly looks the pair was getting, they’d caught on to the fact that Peter and MJ were dating.
“You can’t imagine how much I’d love to walk all over the precious bridge the department of transport maintains with tax payer money whilst continuously raising their subway tickets,” MJ said sweetly and though Peter had been more gearing towards her seeing as good a view as that from Sydney Harbour bridge, the added spite she found in the activity was a bonus.
They had trailed even further behind the rest of the group now, some of whom were beginning to turn around and snap photos on their phones. A quick look over his shoulder showed part of the city lit up against the dark night sky. The weather had been right; this was the perfect night for a good photo.
“I say about another 50 yards and when we get to the first pillar we sneak off,” Peter whispered in MJ’s ear, his lips brushed against her hair.
“Do you have a y’know –” MJ gestured her hand at him – “suit? Or are we just going to climb up there?”
“I have a suit,” Peter said and took her hand, guiding it to his back right between his shoulder blades. He pressed her hand against the mechanic spider.
“That’s it?”
“Yeah,” Peter said grinning at MJ’s look of wonder. “All it takes is for you to press it right in the centre.” He brought her hand a little lower so that she could feel the indent of the button in the middle of the spider.
“This is still so weird,” MJ said shaking her head and smiling at the ground.
“Good weird?” Peter asked, trying not to let the worry edge into his voice.
“I think so?” MJ replied, but not confidently enough for Peter to feel better about his decision to tell her. But he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, he knew it was the right thing to do and any longer and their relationship probably would have stopped in its tracks. Long distance was difficult enough without hiding such a significant part of his identity.
They were getting closer to the first enormous tower of the Manhattan Bridge. Even when he had lived in the city Peter hadn’t been one to frequent the big New York City bridges. From a distance it was often easy to convince oneself that they weren’t as big and imposing as they actually were. But up close, it was clear quite how much metal work was required to support the seven car lanes that raced above their heads.
Peter prepared to sweep MJ off her feet, thoughts of swinging her up and above and into the sky filled his head. He remembered her arm sliding around his back for security
Then, out of nowhere, 4 things happened in quick succession. Even after the event he would recall these first 4 things first, 4 things that signalled something very bad had just happened. Afterall, Peter had always like his numbers.
Firstly, there was a shattering boom that in memories sounded like the earth had split open beneath them and left Peter’s ears feeling like they were bleeding.
The second thing he noticed as the way that the thick industrial concrete walkway underneath their feet trembled and began to crumble.
And thirdly, before everything after that became something of a wild blur, Peter noticed MJ clutching at his arm and her hand sliding down to the spider and hitting it forcefully. Within seconds the nano tech had moved into place and Peter found himself encased in the Spider-Man suit. The feeling was familiar, the tightness of the suit over his skin, the screens over his eyes that filtered through all of the interference that distracted his senses which lit up red as information began scrawling across. All this was interrupted by the fourth thing – Peter was falling.
And it wasn’t just him. The section of the pedestrian bridge they had been crowded on had entirely collapsed – and that wasn’t the only damage that had been sustained.
The boom and smoke cleared his head somehow and Peter felt ridiculous for overlooking his duties, his responsibilities – especially on a night when he had been aware that something might happen, he’d had direct intel for Christ’s sake!
All these thoughts darted through his head quicker than light, but his body was faster yet. His freefall was cut off with a harsh lurch as he stretched his arm out and a web flew to latch around one of the steel beams that towered above him.
Peter landed easily on the railing by the road and used a hand to steady himself on a thick wire. The suit echoed his thoughts, read each neural transmission and peeled away from his feet, allowing him to kick his shoes off and for the built in heel of the suit to wrap more securely around his feet. In the process he shucked off his winter coat and haphazardly threw it behind him.
Peter’s eyes darted as he read all the information that his suit was displaying but in the end, he didn’t have time for schematics or status reports and threw himself into the fray.
The explosion had gone off less than 10 yards from where they had all been walking, targeting the sturdy structure of the underside of the bridge and the immense pylons that rooted it in place. The bridge was emitting creaks and groans underneath his feet which worried him greatly. Some of the cars behind him were screeching and tearing across the road trying to make it to freedom, whilst others had deserted their vehicles and were trying to run.
Peter jumped off the bridge and swung underneath. He could see several of his classmates already safe and running further across the bridge, the way behind them burning and crumbling. How did they always manage to get themselves involved with explosions? Every goddamn time.
Flash was clinging to the railing when Peter landed next to him.
“Run!” Peter yelled gripping Flash’s arm tightly. “Get them further away and off of the bridge if you can! Can you do that?”
Flash didn’t say anything as he looked up at Spider-Man, but swallowed and turned tail. Peter couldn’t be sure if Flash had recognised his voice, or worse yet seen the suit go on but there really wasn’t time to think about that.
A few of his classmates had tried to run back the other way when the explosion went off and were caught in the beams under the bridge – quite possibly the worst place to go when a bridge was threatening to come down on top of you. Peter fired several webs in quick succession to make a bridge of his own across the section of the pedestrian walkway that had collapsed and yelled at them to start walking across.
But they were too slow, too scared of falling to the icy waters below to make even a few steps across before they were backtracking to the presumed safety of the iron giant at their backs.
“This structure isn’t stable, you need to get off the bridge,” Peter yelled at them, pointing the way they had come – to the section that had remained intact through it all.
The four of them look at him with eyes that didn’t seem very promising – the fear was something he had seen before. The bridge groaned and Peter echoed its sentiments as sirens began to wail from above and the whup whup of a helicopter sounded overhead.
“Come here,” Peter called and held a hand out.
Betty was first and she took his hand gratefully, Peter guided her along the bridge of webs, almost throwing her the last meter, onto more stable ground and she took off running in the direction of safety. Peter helped the other three, and they too, fled for safety.
“Peter!” A voice shrieked.
Peter spun around desperately but all the pedestrians on the bridge had fled further down – either back to the city or in the direction of the southern end of the bridge.
“Peter, scans show a civilian under the bridge,” Karen’s voice said in his ear, the first time that she had spoken so far that night. Though she was an AI, there was a cold air to her voice.
“MJ!” Peter yelled and jumped over the railing, his hands and feet sticking to the steel as he climbed underneath the bridge.
“Hold on,” Peter cried dropping down further, so he was just holding on by his hands and tried to swing over to her. They were caught on either side of the explosion range, fire and smoke billowed between them and MJ coughed painfully.
“I am…” she said. Past the smoke, Peter could see the moisture on her fingers and the steel bar she was desperately gripping, making it dangerously more slippery the longer she was there. Peter tried not to look at the burn that arched up her right forearm, blistering painfully.
MJ caught his attention again, right as he was about to reach for her, “Peter,” she struggled out her face wet with tears but eyes hard with determination, “there’s another one, there.”
Peter looked in the direction she had turned her head. Not 10 yards away was a cluster of explosives, set to go off. Manufacturer names were printed on the grey boxes wired to the steel, the same names that Karen and Genevieve had showed him that afternoon. Peter’s heart clenched.
00:09 a counter atop one read. 00:08.
“Destroy that, I can keep hanging here a little longer,” MJ said and tried to smile but it was a pained grimace followed by a whimper as she continued to struggle.
Peter wanted to move forward and reach for her, but there was no way to get through the fire. He’d have to go around it. By that time MJ would have fallen and the next set of explosives would have gone off. It was MJ or the explosives.
9 seconds wasn’t enough, it would never be enough time. Perhaps he could contain the explosion with webbing somehow? But he only had webs rigged to cause explosions – he’d never thought to invent some that could prevent or mitigate the damage of such fire power.
It was the thinking, the decision and weighing up of the consequences that cost them both. In a split-second Peter made the decision. He shot two webs at MJ’s hands, webbing them together and then shot a third to link her hands to the safety of the steel at his own back.
He then threw himself past her, through fire and smoke and felt the nanotech trying to resist the extreme heat but knew their integrity would be disintegrating in the high temperatures. He should have listened to Karen, to Gen, he should have just listened!
Peter didn’t register the pain of the heat from inside the suit and instead extended his hands out towards the explosives and the suit fired web after web, hundreds of large net webbing, in a desperate attempt to contain the explosion. He saw the timer reach its final second and felt the way the air around him shifted – the huge bubble of force that was sent out as fire and smoke filled his vision and steel flew in all directions. The final web he shot didn’t come from him, at least he didn’t think it was his decision that fired it, but it caught onto something high above and he was yanked upwards just as his feet brushed icy water.
As he swung upwards Peter’s eyes went first to MJ and he was relieved to see her still hanging, though apparently unconscious. An uncontrollable noise lurched from his chest. Just then emergency workers reached her, and he tried not to rejoice at the fluorescent vests that meant he wasn’t alone. Peter watched long enough for them to start reeling her up by his webs and had to trust that they would handle the situation from there.
He had another catastrophic situation to deal with. After two explosions in such quick succession and in such close range to each other, the integrity of the bridge was seriously failing. The mountains of steel from the towers above that weighed the damaged section of the bridge down was the most immediate issue. The bridge began to sink, as though someone had tied a string to its underside and pulled, letting gravity do the rest of the work. It was like it was being sucked into a large sinkhole.
Except Peter couldn’t let that happen.
The mysterious web that he hadn’t shot pulled him top side and Peter stumbled as he landed between two cars who had apparently collided before their owners had abandoned them and run. Peter fired webs to the top of the tower and linked them with the tarmac of the bridge. He joined together pieces of bridge that had been damaged and tied and knotted his webs together to try and make them stay.
The bridge was still groaning but it wasn’t moving anymore, and Peter had to hope that it was enough for now – there were other problems coming to light. No one he had ever fought had stopped at two attacks, not on a bridge like this. There had to be more.
Peter was breathing heavily as he jumped on top of cars and used them as stepping stones, running further down the bridge, helping any stragglers on the way and directing them to the police and first responders who were coalescing at both ends of the bridge and to the helicopters who were aiding the scene from above and lifting those injured to safety. They were doing their job, so Peter had to do his.
“Karen, I need –“
“Your drones,” Karen’s clipped voice jutted in, “they have already arrived, I suspected you’d be needing back up.”
On a small screen in the corner of his eyesight appeared the shaking vision of a drone who whizzed past Peter’s head, off to scan beneath and further up the bridge.
“Do we have any idea how many more explosives might be rigged to go off?” Peter asked.
“Based on the amount of stock that is missing from the three manufacturers, disregarding any outliers, there is potentially another ten sights set to explode,” Karen responded as Peter climbed, yet again over the railing.
“Thanks Karen, can you—” Peter began, but yet again, the AI was several steps ahead of him.
“I have already contacted the Avengers and those who are nearest are on their way.”
“Thanks Karen,” Peter said as his gaze narrowed in on the first set of explosives, the blue timer steadily ticking down, “and I’m sorry, I should have—”
“Peter,” Karen’s voice sounded kinder but perhaps his brain was imagining it, “focus on this now.”
It was all he needed to zone in on the task at hand. Every part of his body became geared towards disarming the explosive. He didn’t need to ask as Karen brought up the plans of the particular bombs he found before him. Peter’s arms burned as he tore off the metal casing of the largest box, underneath lay the main reactor that was linked to the timer. 01:03. Far off ahead, his drone flew on, identifying the next bomb and the one after that, they seemed to go on and on.
Peter linked a web from one side of the explosives to the other and used it as a sort of hammock to lean against as he surveyed what he was up against. From there he worked quickly to neutralise the threat, sorting through wires whilst running chemical compounds through his head as he figured out exactly what was making these particularly ones go boom. The timer froze and blinked red once before turning off. He felt his heart seize a moment and leant back against the cushioning of his web before remembering the other 9 that Karen had spoken of.
One by one, Peter neutralised the bombs before they could cause any more damage. It was sneaky, setting them off within two minutes of each other so that there was no way to stop the damage. People trying to escape would have been caught at every explosion if Peter wasn’t there. But Peter was, and he knew what to do and he was trying, goddamn it he was really trying.
He had thought that with each dismantled bomb it would become easier, they weren’t any different from each other and the process was the same. But as each timer stopped Peter began to feel more lethargic. His fingers shook so much he almost made some serious mistakes, but he could do nothing but keep trying. Never pausing between bombs, simply heading to the next and hoping he had as much of his two minutes remaining to dismantle them.
Often when Peter worked sound around him would disappear. His brain filtering through the irrelevant chatter, occasionally it picked up on important things to overhear, but otherwise he was very good at blocking things out when he was in the zone. That wasn’t the case here. The sirens sounded a hundred times louder, even though he was getting further away from them. The whup whup of the helicopter above felt like a thud at his back with every spin on the propellers. Most of all, the beeping of the explosive was like a metal rod pricking further and further into his brain and there was no escape.
In the end Peter had dismantled 6 of the remaining 10 and was moving onto the seventh when his suit started to fall apart. The fire earlier had been too much for some parts of it, but the nanotech was good at reassigning itself to more useful areas during such high adrenaline situations as these. Peter had uncovered his faced long ago to let himself breath better but kept his ‘eyes on’ so he could see the plans of the explosives. His hands and arms were bare, so were his legs, save his feet. The suit had reassigned itself to his heart and his neck and the tools he was using to pull apart the explosives before they pulled apart him.
7. Peter had never been a fan of the number. He liked most prime numbers well enough but there was something that irked him about seven.
His hands trembled as he went in for the final incision of the seventh set of explosives, legs tensed and ready to move onto eight as soon as this one was stable.
He wasn’t sure what made it happen. A hand spasm, maybe he blinked a fraction of a second too long, but Peter’s hand slipped.
“Peter—” came Karen’s warning but it was too late. The mistake cost him everything. Number 7’s timer, which had been at a less than comfortable 01:34, began to drop faster than seconds had any right to. Peter tried to fix his mistake, cutting the right piece of wire, but it was too late. The damage had been done.
Peter had run out of ideas by the time it reached 00:01, so he let go. His body was exhausted from the high-pressure bursts of adrenaline that he had demanded of it. He didn’t fall quick enough and when the explosion went off, the heat caught him, it enveloped him and trapped him in smoke and sweltering temperatures. Peter felt the sting of fire on his skin, in his nose, his lungs, his eyes. The pain was so great that at the time he didn’t hear the final three explosions that fired off in quick succession further down the bridge.
Peter threw up his hands to shield his face and something in his helpless brain decided to save himself and a web flew from his wrist.
Peter stayed there, swinging back and forth as the bridge began to collapse further south. Chunks falling off into the water, a great tower tilting dangerous as thick wires tried to restrain it. The sirens continued, the helicopter grew louder and behind it all the sound of collapsing steel as the monument was sent, piece by piece, into the water.
Peter wanted to escape the all too familiar thoughts that ran around his head in the aftermath as he hung there shivering, 30 yards above the chill of the east river. Thoughts of those he had failed, those who had gotten injured and god forbid anyone who had lost their life. They had all been counting on him and yet again, he had failed. He always did.
He’d been here once before, years ago. He’d gotten ahead of himself, thought that having the new suit and superhuman abilities meant that he could go around saving the world. He was a naïve child who thought that even if he shouted and screamed, no one would heed his warnings. He’d had Tony at his back then but here he was alone. There was no billionaire, philanthropist, father-figure to save him and his mistakes now.
He’d known about the threat and had been too arrogant, too conceited and selfish. He had shirked his duty, a duty he had tried to abandon months before but had decided no. This was what he wanted his life to be, he had decided to try.
But this was where the trying got him. Hanging from a bridge, half clothed and half singed. A broken suit. And rather than face all the thoughts that raced up to yell at him and his stupidity, he let them all go away and didn’t protest when exhaustion led him to the darkness that waited.