Chapter Text
When Peter Parker had been four years old, his aunt and uncle had taken him to the beach, citing that they all needed a “family vacation, away from the city.” he remembers walking onto the sand for the first time, bright and hot under his unsteady feet. Clad in red and blue swim trunks, with a small purple pail and sunshine yellow shovel duo, one of the cheaply made ones from the CVS next to the beach, was tightly curled into his tiny fist. First, he tried to build a sandcastle, with four tall towers, and a moat to keep out unexpected guests, a couple of broken sea shells pushed into the walls, but he quickly got bored as the tide would wash it away like clockwork. Then, he resorted to filling up his pail of sand, packing it tightly into the bottom, and rotating the pail so that the sand would drop onto his head, endlessly entertained by the new sensation he felt as the cool sand would pour over him. At one point, he decided to take a new direction: by dumping the pail of wet sand directly onto his face-- the wet sand, an earlier sign of comfort, burned as he attempted to blink the mess out of his eyes. One small fist curled around his eyes in an attempt to rub it out as May and Ben ran towards him with identical looks of concern as they lifted him up and helped him remove the last of the sand from his eyes, before walking him back to the hotel for a much-needed nap. Peter had cried about it for days, and for years, he treated any sort of sand with a certain type of caution.
Peter remembered that experience now, with a mixture of nostalgia and pain as he thought back. As the chunks of the building started to fall around him, he tried to watch through teary eyes as the Vulture escaped, long metal wings expanding gracefully as he took off, headed to the Avengers plane, without a single look cast back at the teenage boy he left to die. Then, he was suddenly, violently, pinned to the ground by debris as the warehouse continued to fall around him. The initial pressure was a shock to his system, as he felt his torso constrict painfully as he was pushed into the ground. Another piece fell on top of him, pinning his legs and lower back to the ground.
What remained of the room was incredibly dusty as it’s remains smashed down around him. Peter heard the pieces fall before they did, smothering his neck, chest, and arms under its weight. He couldn’t move anything from the neck down, but he still gave his surroundings a cursory glance in hopes that he would spot something that would help him out. But, in the midst of all the dust and smoke, it was impossible for Peter to see anything. In an attempt to ground himself, he took a shaky breath, but he was met only with a sharp pain in his lungs as oxygen continued to escape him. He closed his eyes slowly, trying to ignore the building that was literally crushing him. Once again, he tried to take another shaky breath with no luck, his lungs were crushed too tightly to the ground to actually fill with oxygen and the debris made it even harder for him to focus. His chest constricted again as he tried to take yet another shaky breath-- only to have a short sob exit instead. He placed his forehead to the cool, wet, cement in an attempt to make himself more comfortable, as his eyes, nose, and mouth filled with the remains of the warehouse around him. Instinctually, his eyes filled with tears as his body fought back against the sudden invasion, as his small form racked with breathless sobs.
When he would later retell the story to Ned, Peter would exaggerate the story just a tiny bit, defending his choices to himself by claiming that he was just making the story more interesting, making himself out to be more of a hero. He made a point to make it clear that he was not scared. He would spin the story in such a way that it seemed as though he did not doubt himself, that lifting a building off of himself was a simple task. He did this to mask his real feelings, his real emotions. But truthfully, when Peter first felt that initial hit as he fell to the ground, he did not feel brave. At that moment, Peter Parker was convinced that he was going to die. Cold, alone, scared, and, abandoned. As it got harder to breathe, his thoughts felt began to feel farther away from him; briefly, he wondered how long it would take for them to find his body. Days? Weeks? He was suddenly aware that he had no way of letting anybody know where he was. As he tried to breathe again, to no avail, he couldn’t help but think that this must be the worst way to die, conscious of the whole thing, as his ribs starting to crack under the pressure of the roof, and choking on dust and broken metal. His mouth was dry and full of debris. Bitterly, he thought that he must’ve looked like some hero: breathless sobs escape impossibly dry lips as he struggled to breathe, as his body started to go limp, exhausted from attempting to wriggle his way out of his own grave. He thought of May, Ned, Liz, and MJ-- how they would react when he didn’t return to the homecoming dance. It was impossible not to think about their lives without him, he wondered how they would react when the police found his body, or who would come to the funeral? Would everything change when they learned that he was Spider-Man? Lastly, he thought of Mr. Stark, and couldn’t help but find himself curious about his mentor’s reaction, would he be sad? Disappointed in Peter? Upset with himself? He wondered if he would have any reaction at all, would any of them? Gasping, Peter tried again to find oxygen as he took a strangled breath. Were his attempts to breath were just delaying the inevitable? He found himself reviewing his life, looking back onto his own memories. As he was jostled back to the present by a piece of shifting debris, one thought was incredibly clear to him: clearly, he was nothing without the suit after all. He laid flat and closed his eyes to protect them further, as he resigned himself to wait-- for what he wasn’t sure.
But then he heard it above him, the sound of the Vulture’s wings as we flew high above Peter’s head, whispering into his headset, as Peter strained to look up at him, fluttering just out of view. It was then that Peter realized: it had to be him. He was the only person who knew the Vulture’s plans. He was the only person who could stop him. He had to stop him. It wasn’t about “saving the day” or “being a hero.” Peter didn’t care about that. It was about stopping his neighborhood from being destroyed. It was about protecting his friends and family, and all the other people who were just trying to live their lives. It occurred to him so suddenly, and he cursed himself for thinking that he would give up so easily: he couldn’t die, he still had things to do. Despite the lack of oxygen, Peter’s brain started to move a million miles a minute, he needed a plan, and he needed one quick. Pulling in as much oxygen as he could, Peter looked down at his mask, half submerged in a puddle of dirty water. He did his best to place his hands underneath him as he gave a first attempt towards pushing himself upwards. It didn’t work right away; instead, his arms gave out beneath him. He struggled upwards again, his arms pressed into the dirt, with his arms shaking, he fell back into the earth, broken glass cutting into the exposed skin on his hands. Peter glanced back at the mask in the puddle in front of him, and as he stared into the goggles of his first mask, he remembered why . In the mask, he could see the body of his Uncle Ben, bloody and helpless in the alley outside his home. He saw the look on Liz’s face as he lifted her up out of the elevator shaft in Washington DC. He saw the countless faces of people he had helped cross the street or had given directions to, or saved from a mugging or worse. Queens needed him. He stared into the blank eyes of the mask, catching his own reflection in the water, and he saw himself for the first time: he saw himself when he got his powers, he saw himself swinging through New York, and he saw himself then: bruised and filthy but not. Giving. Up. Peter placed his arms beneath himself as he pushed upwards,
“come on Spider-Man”
he whispered, breathless. At first, the rubble did not move from its place atop him, but he gave another huff and thought of Queens,
“come on Spider-Man.”
He pushed again, shifting some of the rubble that was at the very top.Tiny pieces started to roll off, followed by larger ones. He could imagine his escape: like a rock slide or an avalanche, the metal, and concrete that had kept Peter captive was starting snowball off of him. He watched as what was left of the warehouse started to shift above him. A third push and the first large piece of debris fell down and off of his body. Peter felt himself let out a breath he hadn’t known that he was holding in, as that piece of debris (and, more honestly: Peter’s ability to move it) was the reminder Peter needed: he was not going to die today. He was not going to die alone, he was not going to die cold and abandoned. He was Spider-Man, after all.
After a couple more shoves, Peter had successfully shifted the rest of the debris in such a way that he was able to crawl out of it. As he looked up into the starless night sky, he watched a couple of planes fly overhead, completely unaware of the scene below them. He took a couple of labored breaths as he pushed himself to his feet, bloody hands pressed into his ripped sweatsuit-clad thighs. He coughed, and then, without any sort of warning, he immediately began to sob as the air started to fill his lungs again, in what was an experience that he could only describe as pure relief. Once he had gathered his thoughts a little bit, and his sobbing had to start to subside into impossibly deep breaths, he reached down, ignoring the sharp pain he felt along his ribs as he did so, to pick his mask up out of the dirty puddle. Although it was too wet to be worn, and probably torn beyond repair anyway, he couldn’t part with it just yet: it was a part of him. He shoved the soaking mask into his back pocket and took his first step in the direction he thought the Vulture had headed. Each step hurt a little more, and even though he hadn’t stopped to assess his injuries through blurry eyes, it was astoundingly clear to Peter that each step jostled his bruised and broken body just a little bit more, but Peter’s broken bones and puncture wounds were the least of his worries.
The battle that occurred when he finally reached the Vulture passed in a blur. Peter remembers clinging to a plane as he was lifted higher and higher in the air, and then he briefly remembers the battle that took place as the plane started to crash, the wind of the plane whipped around his face as he struggled to keep his balance, and the Vulture was absolutely ruthless, his goal was no longer to make sure Peter couldn’t stop him; he didn’t want Peter to survive point blank. As the plane began to crash, he shot as many webs as he could, in an attempt to give himself control of the plane. It didn’t work completely, but he still found himself able to turn the plane away from the amusement park and towards the beach. He almost passed out when his feet first touched the ground, He arms felt stretched and disconnected from his body, and his chest burned. As he stood up from the wreckage, his vision was once again clouded with debris, dust, and smoke, and before he could think about what to do next, he was leaning over himself, one hand pressed to one of the many crates that now littered the beach, and he committed blood and bile over the sands. His mind was foggy as he fought his way through what was left of the plane, somewhere in the back of his mind, he concluded that he had to find the Vulture, a voice telling him that it wasn’t right to leave him there to die, even if the Vulture would’ve left him. He couldn’t breathe and the smoke and fire started to burn brighter and heavier, but he continued to search the beach, he couldn’t just leave the Vulture alone. After what felt like hours of searching, feeling the edges of suit start to burn, He found the man, face down in the sand. Peter hoisted him up over his shoulders and was able to quickly confirm that the man was still breathing. He sat him down against a pile of crates, in an obvious location so he wouldn’t be missed, but far enough away from the fire that he wouldn’t die. As he heard sirens start to approach the beach, Peter knew immediately that he didn’t want to anywhere near the scene of the crime, so he quickly (but tightly) webbed the Vulture where he was, and scrawled a note a piece of cardboard for whatever people would find him. With a sigh, he realized how low on web fluid he was as he started to walk away from the scene. His steps were slow, and each one sent a burn from the bottom of his feet and crawled up into his head. He only had one goal: get back home.
He didn’t quite meet his goal; instead, he made it to an alley a couple of hundred yards away before he collapsed against a dumpster. His whole body ached, and he felt as though he had just been crushed by a building, engaged in combat with a giant man in a wingsuit on top of a plane, fell from thousands of feet up, crashed a plane, and walked through fire. Although he wasn’t a doctor, Peter could tell that at least a couple of his ribs were broken, and his shoulders felt like they weren’t… quite right. He could still feel a couple of puncture wounds littering his body, still leaking blood, and he couldn’t even begin to count the number of bruises he could feel across his flesh. He watched the scene on the beach carefully, completely prepared to move if anyone started to come near him, as the police and fire department arrived first; but then, he watched as a familiar black car pulled up to the scene. As Happy began to get out of the car and head to the scene, muttering into a headset, no doubt to a very angry Mr. Stark. Peter watched as a policeman approached Happy, and showed him the piece of cardboard next to the Vulture. Happy looked at it; shocked, before looking up at the Vulture, who had woken up, but was still webbed in his current position. Upon seeing that, Peter got up from the alley he was in, and finally started to head back home, walking when he could, but mostly holding onto the last of his web fluid to jump from building to building, completely unmasked.
When Peter finally slid back through his window, forty minutes later, he first sent a quick text to Ned, to inform him that he hadn’t died. Next, he texted May, saying that he was home from Homecoming and that yes, it had been lots of fun. That one was definitely a lie, but he had no reason to worry his aunt. He limped to the bathroom across the hallway, with a pair of pajamas in one hand. Sitting down on the edge of his bathtub with a washcloth, he used water from the sink and antiseptic to start to clean off the majority of his wounds, he wasn’t worried about healing them, but he wanted to make sure that they weren’t going to get infected. Once he had cleaned off as many wounds as he could reach, he stripped out the shredded remains of his suit and turned on the shower to clean off the rest of the blood. As he waited for the water to warm up, Peter looked into the mirror and flinched at the sight of the dirt and blood caking his face; sighing, he stepped into the shower and he went as quick as he could, which given his current condition, was pretty slow. He wrapped himself in a towel and turned the water off, before donning the softest and loosest pair of pajamas he could find. He wandered back into his bedroom, his brain felt distant as it reminded him that he would be mostly healed in the morning. He shut his bedroom window and pulled the covers over his body. Exhausted, he fell asleep before his head hit the pillow, the sounds of the city sounded like they were a million miles away as he fell into a nightmare induced slumber, completely unaware of the climbing number of missed calls from Happy.