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Peter laid on top of a cold, hard apartment roof, his shoulder shooting out a white-hot, burning pain from the bullet dug inside it. It was dark out, the only lights shining from the billboards and windows of buildings surrounding him. The air was brisk and cold, and the wind cut right across Peter’s face which did not help with the agony he was already in. He only had sweatpants, a sleeveless hoodie and wool mask, a long-sleeved shirt, boots, and goggles on to protect him from the merciless cold. Peter was about fifteen minutes away from home with only web shooters as transportation, and it was two in the morning.
This plan had worked out great.
Peter had decided about an hour ago that he would go use his new found powers to go save someone from, I don’t know, a burning building, or a robbery. So he’d sneaked out of the tower while his parents were distracted, swung around for a bit, and caught a dickhead trying to mug some poor woman trying to get home. He’d tried to be all heroic and mighty, but as a fourteen year old in sweats the mugger didn’t get the message. So Peter had fired some webs, told the woman to run, but before he’d completely webbed the guy up the dickhead had shot him in the shoulder.
So there Peter was, lying on a roof, trying to figure out how in God’s name was he going to get home without 1. putting himself in agonizing pain, 2. alerting anyone ranging from Steve to JARVIS that someone was trying to crawl through the child’s window and sneak in, (ever since some asshole had broken inside and tried to kill Peter and Dad, security measures had been raised to quite the extreme), and 3. getting grounded for life for sneaking out in the middle of the night.
For a few minutes Peter sat there, lying on his back with his right shoulder, the shot one, propped up on a box. But eventually the reality that he would have to return to the tower fully crashed on him and he pushed himself up, letting out a groan of pain. Bracing himself for agony, he shot out a web from his left hand and jumped off the building. He only enjoyed the thrill of flying through the air for a few seconds before slamming into the building and on instinct putting out both his hands to stick to the surface. He let out a yelp of pain as a shock of pain pierced through his shoulder. But he couldn’t remain there and let the pain fade away; he had to keep moving.
So he shot out another web and tried to land on just his left hand, and failed once again. By the fifth building he was biting into his lip so hard it was beginning to bleed. But hey, only eleven more, right?
So he kept swinging, his shoulder screaming in pain and his lip definitely bleeding by the time he got to the building that was right across from the tower he lived in. Peter looked over the tower and its beautiful white and blue light, basking in its glory before he had to figure out a way to get through a window without setting off about five hundred alarms.
Then it struck him; maybe if he just took his mask off and one of his gloves off he’d be fine. So he pulled the mask and goggles off and reluctantly stuffed his gloves into his hoodie. Without his goggles his mind swam with all the activity of bustling streets and lights and cold, and without the stickiness of his fingers and feet he would’ve fallen right off down into the street, which the thought of nearly made him throw up.
Finally he shot the web and dropped off, swinging through the air and hanging off the web on the tower. He’d decided not to crash into it this time, and he was up much higher than he had been on the other ones. Panic and exhilaration rushed through him and he quickly stuck to the wall, being very cautious as he crawled down to where his window was. He’d left a yellow post-it note on the window before he’d left so he wouldn’t mistake, say, the bathroom as his room.
Exhausted and in great pain he slid the unlocked window open and collapsed through it, all the pain in his shoulder crashing down on him. He gasped in pain but stood up, pushing the window down shut and stumbling into the bathroom. He looked for the tweezers and found them after a bit of rumbling, and he cringed. How the hell was he going to do this without throwing up? But, it had to be done so it wouldn’t get infected.
So he grit his teeth, took off his hoodie and long-sleeved shirt, and jabbed the tweezers into his shoulder to dig out the bullet. Peter stuffed a towel into his mouth and screamed into it as he dragged the bullet out, throwing it into the trash can and willing that image away before continuing. He sloppily put some cream on the wound and taped a gauze pad over it, which was his way of telling himself that it was completely fine. And with that he got up and eagerly left the bathroom, throwing his spider-man clothes back in the closet all with his left hand and slowly changing into pajamas.
But just as he climbed into bed, a memory struck him.
A memory of the event that had caused this whole horrible adventure in the first place.
The shooting of Uncle Ben.
A similar petty thief’s gun pointed right at Uncle Ben, the bullet lodging itself right in Uncle Ben’s lungs. Uncle Ben dropping to the ground, the thief running for his life as Peter ran to Uncle Ben’s side. All these images flashed one after another in Peter’s brain as he sat in his bed, unable to move as guilt and terror gripped his body for a few horrible minutes.
Eventually the flashbacks stopped and Peter fell back onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling as he thought over everything that had happened this past night. First Dad had hugged him and told him everything was going to be ok. Then as he’d been trying to fall asleep Dad and Steve had started to scream at each other. Then Dad had started to cry and Steve had tried to comfort him. Then Peter got into his crappy ‘Spider-Man’ get up and sneaked out.
What a fun night.
Peter wrapped himself under the covers and shut his eyes, desperate to get everything out of his head and fall asleep. Luckily after about ten minutes the exhaustion from the whole night kicked in and he was completely out.
Peter woke up to someone knocking on his door.
“Hey Sleeping Beauty, you up yet? Steve made blueberry pancakes. I know they’re your favorite.”
It was Dad.
Peter went to get up and immediately felt a horrible ache from his shoulder. He cringed but called out in the most cheery voice he muster, “I’ll be out in a minute!”
Dad seemed to be satisfied with the answer and Peter could hear him walk away. He then painfully rolled around and grabbed his phone from his nightstand, horrified when he saw that it was 1pm.
He’d nearly slept for ten and a half hours.
But, with the circumstances of last night, could you blame him?
So he forced himself out of bed, wincing at the bright light coming from outside. He decided he didn’t want to change because c’mon it’s only Saturday, and he walked out of his room and into the elevator to the kitchen downstairs.
There Dad and Steve were sitting in the connected living room, watching Star Trek: Generations together as Peter stepped in. Dad’s head whipped around and Steve also turned around to greet Peter.
“How late did you stay up?” Dad asked, bemusement in his smirk, and Peter sheepishly replied “3am.” Dad sighed while Steve said, “Well, I put the pancakes in the microwave so they wouldn’t get cold. Just heat them up for a few minutes and hopefully they’ll taste just as good.”
Peter smiled and said, “I bet they will.”
As the pancakes heated up he took out a plate and fork with his left hand, and when they were done he gobbled them up. When he was done, he was so happy with the taste of the pancakes he picked the plate up with his right hand.
He screamed “OW!” and dropped the plate. His shoulder felt like someone had just hit it with a baseball bat as hard as they could five times, over and over again. As he reeled in pain he heard Dad yell, “What happened, Petey?” in a panicked voice.
“Just hurt my shoulder last night, and I picked up the plate and it hurt,” Peter called back, and he looked up and saw the inquisitive look on his Dad’s face.
“What’d you do last night?”
“Oh, I was just, uh, going to the bathroom and I fell down the stairs.”
The rise of both Dad’s and Steve’s eyebrows showed just how bad of a liar Peter was. Peter put both the plate and fork into the sink and smiled nervously. “I don’t know how I fell so badly.”
Dad got up and walked over to Peter, concern and suspicion on his face. “Can I check your shoulder? It sounded like you’d done more than just bruised it.”
“You don’t have to, really, Dad,” Peter said, trying to get his unsurprisingly overprotective dad to back off, but Peter’s rejection made the suspicion in Dad’s face grow even more. “Petey, let me see it.” He said it in his stern, I’m-the-dad-not-you-so-shut-up voice so Peter sighed and pulled the collar of his shirt down and decided to just get it over with.
When Dad saw the gauze pad he carefully pulled it off, and he gasped when he saw the bullet wound. Steve immediately got up and hurried over.
“What the fuck did you do, Peter?” Dad inspected the wound closely, and when Steve came over his eyes widened in worry as Peter felt more and more nauseous. “No idea--”
“That’s a bullet wound,” Steve interjected. “I saw I lot of those in my time in the war. And that looks pretty new.” His eyes then became cold and angry. “Who shot you, Peter?”
Dad’s eyes were panicked and livid.
Under the intense pressure Peter decided not to lie completely, but still make up some of it (since they couldn’t exactly know he had been turned into a superhero overnight).
“Um, I uh, last night, I sneaked out, just to get some fresh air, because I couldn’t sleep and I heard you guys fighting--and I ran into some asshole who tried to mug me. He shot me but I got away in time. And then I sneaked back in. I’m sorry.” He hated how his voice started to tremble in the middle, because he didn’t want them to think he was trying to get them to pity him.
On both of Dad’s and Steve’s faces, there was a mixture of anger and guilt. There was a long silence of them standing in the kitchen before Dad quietly said, “First, you’re getting grounded for about a year for sneaking out. Second, I would gladly skin the guy who shot you. And third, you heard us fighting?” The guilt in Dad and Steve’s eyes doubled at the last part.
“Yeah. And I felt bad because it was about me,” Peter replied honestly. And Uncle Ben getting shot was my fault too.
“Petey, that wasn’t your fault,” Steve said, obviously just trying to get Peter to feel better, but Peter wasn’t having it. “Yes it was! If I-if I hadn’t been a dumbass and gotten Uncle Ben hurt, maybe you guys wouldn’t have fought!” His voice shook even more and before he burst into tears right in front of them, he raced out of the room and up the stairs to his room. When he got there he locked the door shut and collapsed onto his bed, sobbing into his pillow.
Soon enough he heard soft knocks coming from the door. “Petey, please open the door. Neither our fight or the thing with Uncle Ben were your fault. I don’t know how you got that into your head but none of it is true. Just let me in, ok?”
“I just stood there and let him get shot!” Peter shouted through sobs. “I could’ve done something and I didn’t!” He felt terrible, his stomach and chest tightening and his head swimming in horrible memories and guilt.
“Petey you’re a kid, what were you supposed to do when someone shot your uncle? Jump in front of the gun and take the bullet? And Uncle Ben is healing, he’s going to be fine. Just let me come in, Pete. Please.”
Peter considered it for a minute; yeah, it was his fault and he probably deserved to be left alone to cry, but Dad sounded desperate and he hated hearing his dad sound upset. So he pushed himself off, wiping hot tears off his face as he unlocked the door and opened it to let his dad in.
Dad looked tired and worried, as well as Steve behind him. He immediately enveloped Peter in a deep, tight hug as soon as Peter opened the door. Peter tried just for a few seconds to keep strong and not break down, but he broke down anyway. He felt horrible, as he’d cried just a week ago in the hospital, but it didn’t feel too bad to be held as he sobbed into his dad’s shoulder. Steve also joined the hug, holding both Dad and Peter in his huge, muscular arms.
Eventually Peter stopped crying and he felt embarrassed as he angrily wiped away his tears with both his dad and step-dad watching him carefully. In that moment he felt as fragile as a piece of glass; put too much pressure on it and it’ll shatter. But he felt just the tiniest better, as he’d gotten out some of the pain he’d been feeling over the past week. And he looked into his dad and step-dad’s eyes and only found concern and love.
“You’ve been keeping that bottled for a while, huh?” Dad asked, and Peter sadly nodded. “Well, don’t bottle that, ok? It’s better for you in the long run.” Peter nodded again and Dad gave him a kiss on the forehead before becoming a stern Dad again. “By the way, you’re still grounded for sneaking out.”
“It’s dangerous to sneak out, Pete,” Steve said after. “We could’ve been worried about you for hours.”
“I know,” Peter simply said.
“But our fight and Uncle Ben weren’t your fault, ok? Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good,” Dad and Steve said in unison. Sometimes it scared Peter how in sync the two were after seven years of being together.
“And also, don’t even think about going into your room now. You’re going to an emergency room. Now.”
“But I’m fine--”
“Don’t even try, mister.”
And with that, Peter knew everything would eventually be alright.