"Watch Your Profanity"
The leader of the group, whom the other gunmen referred to as Rostislav, urged Peter, Ned, and MJ up the seven flights of stairs it took to reach the 35th floor. As the metal door marked ‘35’ cranked open under the pressure of Peter’s strength, as well as the constant nagging of a gun to his back, Peter was relieved to see that the floor was empty. The entire place was simply a storage room for endless files and archives of varying degrees.
Peter himself had never stepped foot on this floor before, Tony simply told him that there was no real use to this space anyway, and besides, the labs and training rooms were way cooler than some makeshift oversized filing cabinet.
He led them further into the floor, away from any potential exits in case the Hydra men wanted to make an escape. Peter fiddled with his web shooters, making sure that they were ready if needed.
They reached a metal door fitted with an electronic lock that could only be broken with a retinal scan belonging to the brown eyes of a certain billionaire. Peter paused for a moment and looked at Ned. Ned gave him a nod and stepped forward to take a look at the high-tech lock.
“Is this the door to the reactor?” Rostislav asked bitterly. Peter felt Ned shutter under the big man’s protruding eyes and simply nodded in response. “Get to work.” The man said and Ned quickly got to assessing the intricacies of the framework.
MJ and Peter stood back and watched as Ned worked on the lock. MJ let out a quiet sigh and Peter looked down at her hand to see it silently tremble. He reached his right hand down and grasped hers, effectively calming her down.
“Thank you.” She whispered to him, flashing a small smile to Peter, who then reciprocated the gesture.
“I’m sorry MJ.” Peter told her, still holding her soft hand tight. He didn’t want to let go, her warmth radiated off her glowing skin like the sun, and it was almost calming. He’d never seen this side of MJ, the flustered and scared side, she was always cool and collected.
“I know you are Peter.” She replied in a hushed voice. She examined the nearly healed cuts that littered his brow from the broken glass doors. Some dried blood still remained glued to the side of his face, but a majority of the crimson liquid had flaked off. The mop of chocolate curls that sat on his head caught glimpses of the golden sunlight that streamed through the wall of windows on her right. How did she end up in this situation again? She and her two best friends, one of which is a crime-fighting Avenger who climbed walls, were being held at gunpoint by Hydra assassins who crashed their school field trip. Man, her life was weird. There was a quiet tapping sound that her ears picked up every so often, and it was annoying as hell. It was probably just a leaky pipe or something, but the sound persisted.
“No talking.” Rostislav spat, as he turned his attention back to a scrambling Ned, it turns out, that picking locks is not as easy as it is in the movies. “Hurry it up!” He screamed at Ned, pointing a threatening gun into Ned’s back.
Peter’s spidey sense tingled in the back of his neck, instructing him to make a move.
“Cuando digo ‘now,’ tú y Ned corren, vale?” Peter told MJ in a quieter whisper than before. She looked at him with a confused face as to why he was telling her and Ned to run in Spanish.
“¿Por qué hablas en Español?” She asked, still utterly confused. MJ was glad that she decided to take Spanish instead of French in high school.
“Porque no nos entienden. ¿Listos?” He said, explaining that these men only speak Russian and English, and asking her if she was ready. MJ nodded in understanding and Ned gave a sly thumbs up. Wow, who knew that Señor Cobbwell's Spanish lectures were actually relevant? The other men were clueless and Peter lightly rolled up his sleeves and activated his web shooters. He replaced the presence of his hand connected with MJ’s with the arc reactor. The ambient glow of the arc reactor was swiftly covered by her fingers. The ring that was home to her index finger lightly tapped the metal of the reactor as her grip tightened around the object.
“Now!” Peter yelled as he practically shoved MJ out of the line of fire. Ned activated the retinal scan that he altered to spark and flash brighter and dove out of the way. Peter quickly covered his eyes as the lock blinded the five men with its intense and radiant light.
The men groaned and attempted to regain their composure. It was then that Peter quickly sprung into action. He kicked down one of Rostislav’s men and webbed him to the floor. He began fighting Rostislav and two more of his minions simultaneously. He made sure to knock out the guns from their hands and was on the receiving end of a few punches.
Peter landed more kicks and punches than he received thankfully, and ended up knocking out one more of the gunmen with a punch to the face. Damn, Peter’s hand was gonna regret that later. Just as Peter was getting the upper hand, Rostislav uncovered a small knife from his ankle holster and began slashing at Peter’s webs.
As Peter was fighting the remaining two of his men, Rostislav dug the blade deep into Peter’s thigh. Peter let out a scream of agony and quickly attempted to remove the blade that was currently sticking out of his quad. MJ let a quick harrowing scream erupt from her lungs, and Ned lunged forward to help his best friend. Although Rostislav was not going to let Ned interfere with the tortoise activities he had planned for Peter. He looked at the pair, eyes glazed over with lethal insanity, and said “Stay back, or it’s his heart next.”
Peter was taken aback as he watched in horror as the man threatened his friends. Dazed from the unexpected turn of events and the knife sticking out of his thigh, he took an abrupt strike to the jaw. MJ and Ned heard Peter wince, but he was just glad he was taking the brunt of it, and they seemed untouched.
Peter heard MJ let out a small protest as the two men grabbed hold of her and Ned. He was kneeling on the floor holding the knife that was still lodged in his thigh. His vision was blurring in and out as he lost blood at a rapid rate.
Rostislav simply chuckled and knelt down to Peter.
“Okay, I see how it is. You wanna be all tough and heroic in front of your friends. It’s cute. But you need to give me what I want.” The man said in a stern tone, as the grip on the bloodied blade tightened in Peter’s hand.
“No,” Peter said dryly. His hands were covered in his own blood, the pure sight of this much blood was enough to make him pass out, let alone the pain of being stabbed. The man raised an eyebrow and a gasp escaped Ned’s mouth.
“No? I don’t think you understand. Give me what I want, or I’ll shoot all your little friends here.” He said while his goons raised their guns to a firing position. Peter didn’t flinch when he heard the cocking of the guns.
“I’m sorry, but inevitable chaos wasn’t part of my daily agenda,” Peter said sarcastically as he ripped the blade out of his leg and stabbed it into the man’s shoulder.
This took the Hydra man by surprise as he staggered towards Peter. Peter dove out of the way and gave him a strong kick to the stomach essentially sending the man toppling over. As the big man was recovering, two of his backups came charging towards Peter. He fired a web at both of their hands that held guns and landed a kick to their chests. This maneuver effectively knocked the two out just as the big guy came charging at Peter once again. He had removed the blade from his shoulder and had it in his hand ready to use. Man, he was hard to take down.
He was nearly twice Peter’s size, height, and weight-wise. Yeah Peter was strong, but he wasn’t big and bulky like this dude. He knew that it was going to take more than a few punches to take this guy out. Peter dodged most of the man’s punches and threw a few himself.
The large man struck Peter in the jaw a second time, leaving him to take a few steps back. Peter felt the warm crimson pool in his mouth as he spit out what he hoped not to be a tooth. He was just glad that he didn’t have braces anymore, that would’ve sucked ass. He squared up again as he heard MJ’s voice echo throughout his ears.
“Peter look out!” MJ screamed as the last two members of the big guy’s crew came for Peter with their guns drawn and ready to fire. Peter webbed one of the guys to the wall rendering him useless and managed to knock out the other via a punch to the face.
As he turned to face the big guy he was hit with a realization, he couldn't play nice with this guy. With all of the other muggers, robbers, thieves, and other crooks that he stopped in Queens, he would always pull his punches or take it relatively easy on those guys as they were human, and Peter could pack a serious punch.
As if stabbing someone wasn’t enough to take them down. Seriously what was this dude’s skin made of? Fucking vibranium or something? Peter didn’t think too much about it as he dodged another punch thrown his way. His reflexes were beginning to slow as the combination of blood loss and pain from his leg were kicking in. (haha, “kicking” in, get it?)
“Getting tired now?” Rostislav asked while spitting out what seemed to be blood from his mouth. Peter was panting and every breath that he tired to take racked his chest. He almost didn’t inhale anymore as every time he did a sharp pain shot through his broken and battered lungs. Yeah, he was definitely gonna skip patrolling that evening. Peter regained his composure and glared into Rostislav menacing eyes.
“Never.” He said with certainty as he glanced at a worried Ned and MJ who were making sure that the four either unconscious or webbed up Hydra men didn’t make a move. Ned and MJ gave Peter a reassuring nod as he focused back to Rostislav. The man’s shoulder was bleeding profusely, as Peter must have hit his axillary artery. If he stalled him enough, Peter might be able to take him out when the man was weakened from the blood loss.
He kept Rostislav moving, allowing more and more blood to circulate out of his body. Peter’s plan seemed to be working, seeing as Rostislav’s movements looked like they were becoming stagnant and sluggish. It was easier for Peter to land a few more punches, but he could only do so much with a stab wound to the thigh. He was just thankful that he didn’t hit an artery of his own.
The man was beginning to stumble around, losing his bearings thanks to the knife to his axillary, but Peter wasn’t doing much better himself. Rostislav shakes his head, trying to focus, and stares at Peter with a look that reminds him of a charging bull. The Russian man rips the knife out of his shoulder, but this time he lets it hit the floor. Like something you would see out of a 1980s boxing movie, he cracks his knuckles and runs toward Peter. Before Peter even knew what hit him, he was lying on his back, struggling against the man’s iron grip.
At the sight of Peter being barrel-rolled by a 6-foot Russian monster, and not at all like Ned sometimes dreamt Natasha Romanoff would have Russian barrell rolled him, he knew he had to intervene. He frantically looked around for some way to help his friends, but when he came up short he knew he only had one option.
With a thud, Peter felt something slam into his skull. He looked to his side and noticed Ned with both of his shoes off, one Nike in hand, and the other next to Peter, evidently what just smacked him in the head.
“What the fuck, Richard?” Peter said, confused as to why Ned had just hurled his show at his head.
A wicked grin formed on Ned’s face. “Watch your profanity.” He quoted, nearly giggling, albeit the wildly inappropriate timing. Absolutely appalled by the boys’ behavior Rostislav eased up on Peter, and Michelle scoffed “Are you two seriously quoting vines right now?”
Noticing the man was distracted, MJ decided to take the opportunity to actually intervene, because quite literally anything was better than Ned’s shoe hitting Peter as an intervention. She hurriedly ran up to the grappling pair and mustered up all of her strength, socking the man square in the nose. Rostislav let out a near-animal howl and backed himself up from Peter. Grabbing his nose and spouting out a slew of Russian, which had to be a few certain swear words, Peter used the distraction to his advantage.
He hopped to his feet and quickly webbed him up. He wouldn’t be escaping anytime soon, as the new web fluid that he and Mr. Stark developed the weekend before was ten times stronger than anything Peter had created previously. Peter also webbed up the man’s mouth to cover up the obnoxious sounds of his protests. As soon as the dust settled, Peter ran to MJ and Ned, making sure they were alright.
“Are you guys okay?!” Peter asked, a little more desperately than he would have liked.
“I’m fine, how are you dude?” Ned inquired, looking over his best friend for injury.
Peter shook his head, dismissing Ned’s question. “I’m fine, Ned.”
Ned raised an eyebrow and said, “I just watched you take a knife out of your thigh a solid seven minutes ago.”
Peter let out a breathy laugh and said “I heal fast, it’s alright.” Noticing Michelle was quiet, Peter probed “MJ?”
“I’m good, Parker.” She replied, cradling her right wrist with her left hand. It already seemed to be swollen, and by the nature of MJ’s pained face, Peter knew that it was at least a sprain.
“Let me wrap it up for you, MJ.” Peter said. MJ gratefully obliged and offered her wrist to Peter. He handled her arm with a gentle touch as he retracted a long line of web from his web shooters, and began to craft a makeshift cast around her wrist. MJ hissed in pain as he worked his way around her.
“Sorry, just a little bit longer,” Peter added reassuringly. She nodded and gave him a half smile.
“I shouldn’t be complaining, your thigh is dripping blood.” She added.
“Was dripping blood.” He corrected, “I heal fast, you don’t.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for the reminder, Parker.”
He mentally cursed himself for the brilliant one-liner, “No, no, I just meant that you should let me help you. This webcast should do the trick until we can get your arm looked at, alright?”
“Okay,” She agreed, “But as long as we get that leg looked at.” Peter focused his attention on the mending of MJ’s wrist as she tried not to jerk her hand away from the persisting pain.
“All done,” Peter said proudly, as far as impromptu web casts go, this one wasn’t half bad.
“Nice work loser, looks good,” MJ commented, testing the boundaries of how far she could move her wrist.
The pair stared at each other for just a little too long, MJ’s hand still resting in Peter’s. If there wasn’t a malicious Russian bleeding out in the corner, Peter could have stayed in that moment forever. Although it wasn’t the Russian that pulled him back to reality, it was Ned.
“Hey guys, not tryna ruin the moment or anything, but our entire fifth-period class is downstairs waiting for us so…” Ned said, leaving the pair to awkwardly step away from each other.
“Uh, yeah we should probably get going,” Peter commented, taking MJ’s good hand in his as he led the trio back down the stairs.