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If there was one thing Peter was good at, it was patrolling with the full intention of staying close to the ground, sticking to minor criminals, doing everything that Mr. Stark asked of him... only to stumble into situations way above his pay grade, situations Mr. Stark would definitely not want him to be anywhere near.
One good example was chasing what he thought was a small-time arms dealer down the road one minute and then being clutched in giant metal talons, dangling a hundred feet in the air over the Hudson River the next.
Another excellent example was the situation he found himself in now - surrounded by three men with rocket launchers on the top floor of a condemned apartment complex. Only three. And only rocket launchers. Normally he would not have a whole lot of trouble with them. The rocket launchers were a bit more than he was used to, sure, but he could have handled it.
The problem was that they didn’t shoot normal rockets. The first missile hadn’t even hit him, not directly, but the explosion sent out some sort of electrical charge. It fried Peter’s suit before he even landed in their midst and left his muscles seizing and twitching painfully.
The second blast came only moments later, but this time he was more prepared and flipped over it, twisting in the air to watch its trajectory. It hit the far wall and exploded in what appeared to be a normal grenade blast, but as Peter’s feet touched down, a second concussive force was sent out from it, shoving him backwards at least another ten feet.
“Jeez, you didn’t even give me a chance to introduce myself,” Peter muttered as he rose from his crouch and brushed some loose ceiling particles from his suit. “I thought you guys were squatters! I was just going to politely ask you to vacate the premises.”
“We’re not squatters, Spider-freak, so why don’t you mind your own fucking business and swing right back out the window,” one of the men growled, and Peter saw the glint of a gold tooth in his mouth. He kept his rocket launcher trained on Peter’s chest.
“Well see we’re in a different situation, now,” Peter replied carefully, eyes darting left to right as the two other men began to fan out to either side of him, each sporting their own launchers on their shoulders. “Because I’m guessing you don’t have permits for those weird bazooka things. Do they even make bazooka permits?”
“Dude, let him stay,” the man on Peter’s right said lightly, greasy black hair hanging down into his eyes. “We wanted to test them out, anyway. This is way better than shooting them into some warehouse wall.”
“I don’t think this is a good place to be testing them, if you want my opinion.” Peter backed up a few paces to try and avoid being completely surrounded. “You need more space. You might hit each other if you’re not careful, and that would just be embarrassing for you.”
“Then we’ll be careful,” the gold-toothed man said, eyes narrowing dangerously.
Peter shot a web to the ceiling just in time to avoid a direct hit from the man on his right. He felt the heat and pressure of the explosion against his back before scurrying away, then the secondary concussive blast shoved into him and he had to focus on keeping his hands and feet secured to the ceiling to avoid being blown away.
Okay, greasy haired guy has the concussion rockets, he noted as he flipped off the ceiling close enough to the man on his left that he hoped the other two wouldn’t shoot. This man worried him. He was larger, more muscled, and had the dog tags and haircut of a marine. He’d so far been silent and Peter didn’t like the fact that he didn’t know what this man’s ammo could do.
As soon as Peter landed in his space, the marine swung the butt of his weapon toward him. Peter ducked and spun a leg out to knock the man off his feet but it was sidestepped. He followed with a swift punch to the man’s jaw but made sure to lessen the force behind it. He was only aiming to incapacitate.
The marine’s head snapped to the side before his expression hardened again and his fist snaked out with surprising speed to crack against Peter’s chin.
Okay, maybe I don’t need to pull my punches, Peter thought as stars sparked in his vision. He danced backwards as the marine slouched into a boxer’s stance, eyes cold and ready.
A warning tingle travelled up Peter’s spine from behind him and he leapt to the ceiling again. The explosion wasn’t close enough to hurt but Peter was now in range of the electrical follow through.
The currents were far more powerful and painful than they were the first time, crackling through his body like lines of fire. His muscles seized and he dropped from the ceiling, trying to twist like a cat in mid air but only managing half a turn. He landed heavily on his right hand and knee and felt a sharp zing travel up through his wrist.
A boot slammed into his ribs and knocked him onto his back but he rolled through it into a crouch, trying to get his tightened and twitching muscles to cooperate.
The marine followed him, crowding into his space and continuing to assault him with well practiced attacks. Peter blocked and dodged almost all of them but a hard punch got through to his gut and a couple more landed on his cheek. He knew he was being purposely driven back into the middle of the room.
Sure enough, he felt another warning tingle and dove to one side as an explosion blasted the spot where he’d just been standing. He wondered which follow up effect he would get and was answered when his body was hit with the concussion force, pushing his dive for safety much farther than intended. He only just managed to curl into the ground before his body slid and hit the far wall.
Peter groaned against his cramping muscles as he staggered to his feet again and tried to shake out some of the growing ache in his wrist. “Come on guys, it’s gotta be close to dinner time. Can we all just put our destructive and clearly illegal weapons down and get some take out?”
“You paying?” the man with the greasy black hair replied with a smirk.
“I would, but believe it or not this is not a high paying job.” Peter took advantage of the temporary reprieve to reassess the room and try to form a plan.
Without power to his suit, he didn’t have Karen’s kind encouragements and suggestions. Or the ability to switch between web attack types. Or the helpful visual overlay.
But... if he was nothing without the suit, then he shouldn’t have it. He had taken those words to heart the second Mr. Stark said them and had lived by them ever since. He had learned to fight without relying on the suit’s many technological advantages.
But he did miss having the ability to call Mr. Stark for help if he needed it. He wasn’t even sure the tracker in his suit still worked.
“Tell you what.” The man with the gold tooth lowered his weapon and spread an arm out in faux geniality. “You take our offer to mind your own fucking business and we’ll let you go with all your limbs. You can go get as much takeout as your little bug heart desires by yourself and you won’t have to foot our bill.”
“What if I want to stay here and spend more time with you guys?” Peter glanced between the men. Gold Tooth was the most distracted and his weapon was lowered, so Peter would go for him first, webbing his rocket launcher away. The marine was still about ten feet away from his weapon where he’d left it in the corner of the room, so Peter would focus on Greasy Hair Guy before him.
“If you choose to stick around with us, then we’ll stop testing these babies for fun and start testing them for lethality.”
“Ooh, that’s a cool line,” Peter blurted before he thought to stop himself and immediately felt his cheeks flush. To hide his embarrassment he started his attack, whipping his hand out to aim a web at Gold Tooth’s weapon.
He pressed the button on his palm but nothing happened. He tried again. He and Gold Tooth both looked down at his wrist and then back up at each other, and the man gave him a slow smile.
“You still wanna stick around?”
Peter sighed in resignation. “Yes.”
Greasy Hair immediately launched a rocket but Peter was already springing toward the ceiling, this time moving towards the man instead of away. The rocket passed under him and he had almost reached the man when it exploded. He leapt down, hoping to use the concussion wave to propel him forward, but instead he felt electricity rip through him.
He gasped at the unexpected pain, convulsing to his knees and jerking through the aftershocks.
“Dude, that one fucks him up,” Greasy Hair said in wonder as he approached.
Peter just grunted and tried to get his sore, clenching body to relax as fast as possible. The pain was beginning add up, each electrical shock breaking down his muscles more and more. His cheek ached. His ribs ached. His wrist ached.
Now he really wished he could call Mr. Stark.
“I thought you had the concussion missiles,” Peter ground out, curling his arms around his midsection and looking up as the man stopped in front of him.
“You have to reload between shots, you know. It’s not like I’m carrying only one type of ammo.” He grinned down at Peter, the weapon held loosely by his side. “I’m really glad you thought I did, though.”
“We haven’t even hit him dead on yet,” Gold Tooth complained behind him. “He just keeps catching the secondary effects.”
“Don’t worry, he’s slowing down.” Greasy Hair nudged Peter’s shoulder with the barrel of the rocket launcher. “Aren’t you?”
Peter could have stood but decided to stay down. As long as they kept talking he would save his strength and wait, knowing that if he couldn’t predict which rocket came from which direction anymore, then he had to set his mind on escape. He was at too much of a disadvantage.
“Money well-fuckin-spent, man. If we have fucking Spider-Man on the ropes with these babies, there’s not much we can’t do.”
Something heavy impacted the roof above them, rattling the room with so much force that bits of ceiling debris rained down. The three men looked up in confusion. Peter began to smile as an almost inaudible whining sound filled the air, growing louder until it released a powerful blast and the ceiling caved inward.
Ironman landed with a metallic thunk amid the rubble in the center of the room, looking as majestic as Peter had ever seen him with the late afternoon sun coming in through the ceiling and glinting off his armor.
Peter wanted to continue to revel in his mentor’s badass entrance, but instead he took advantage of the distraction to rip the launcher out of Greasy Hair’s hands and send it skidding into the corner. An explosion sounded behind him and he swiftly punched Greasy Hair twice in the face to knock him out before spinning around.
Tony had his forearms crossed in front of him and his metal feet dug into the ground as a concussive wave that would have sent Peter flying forced him back a few feet.
“Be careful, Mr. Stark, they... do stuff!” Peter called out.
“Thanks, kid, I can see that.” Tony blasted his repulsor at Gold Tooth and hit him in the shoulder, slamming him back into the wall. The man got one more shot off before the repulsor hit him a second time and sent him to the ground.
“No, like their ammo is weird! One of them -“ He cut himself off to leap out of the way as the missile sailed straight past Tony and toward him. But Greasy Hair had been right. He was slowing down. It exploded right in front of him, this time close enough that he could feel parts of his suit burning off and his skin underneath being seared as he was thrown back. Then the electricity hit and he cried out in pain, just barely managing to stay on his feet as it coursed through him.
From then on, things moved almost too fast for him to follow. Explosions came one after another, so rapidly that he momentarily thought more men must have entered the room. But then he saw the marine on one knee with a pile of rockets next to him, loading and shooting them off with a speed that only an ammunitions expert could possibly manage.
Peter stayed in motion as best he could, focusing solely on avoiding the blasts. He couldn’t ignore the urge to go on the offensive and try something super cool to impress Mr. Stark, but he knew that he would only get in the way. And he would get yelled at.
Tony had his big body-sized shield planted into the ground in front of him to keep from being pushed back by the concussive blasts. He hunched in on himself slightly when an electrical charge crackled over him but Peter was relieved to see that his suit didn’t shut down like Peter’s had.
He appeared to be timing the blasts in order to gauge when to step out and return fire but before he could, things went from bad to much much worse. Peter had come to assume that there were only the two types of ammunition and that the marine didn’t have his own unique type like he’d first guessed.
But he was wrong. He saw the man load a larger red-shelled rocket into the launcher and the danger sense that buzzed in the back of his neck flared. Tony stepped into the open to fire but Peter leapt from the ceiling towards him and yanked him back behind his shield.
He huddled down behind his mentor just as the man fired. The missile hit the shield dead on and they were both pushed back, Tony grunting as he tried to hold onto the shield with one hand. His other hand reached behind him and wrapped around Peter, holding him tightly against his back.
Then liquid fire began to splatter around them, sticking to the ceiling, the floor, and the walls. It clung in chunks to the shield like a gel, burning a hot blue and orange.
“What the heck is that?!” Peter exclaimed in alarm.
“Napalm,” Tony replied quickly, sounding grim. “How the hell did these idiots get their hands on something like that?”
“I don’t know, I just thought they were trespassers!”
“Of course you did. Can you web that launcher away if I distract him?”
“No, they’re not working! My whole suit shorted out!” Peter replied, feeling like a little kid hiding behind their parent.
He peeked over Tony’s shoulder to see what was happening but then quickly ducked down again as another napalm rocket flew their way. Only this time, the marine aimed high. It exploded against the ceiling directly above them, cracking the plaster and raining the fiery goop down on them.
Peter yelped and dove away as fast as he could but still felt the thwack of burning gel hit his shoulder, another glop splattering across his calf. He rolled up into a crouch and looked for Tony, finding him similarly on fire in several areas, but his iron armor was more than enough protection against it and the flames just made him look even more intimidating. He had stepped from behind his shield and began to rapid fire in the marine’s direction, clearly done trying to be tactical. Peter took the opportunity to try and put out the fire dripping over his shoulder, patting at it frantically with his hand. It had grown more than uncomfortably hot as it started to eat through his suit. But to his rising alarm, the fire not only didn’t go out but transferred to his palm as well.
Then he saw movement in his right periphery and whipped his head over in time to see Greasy Hair shoot a rocket towards him from only about fifteen feet away. The man’s nose was bleeding freely, his expression a mix between fury and panic. Peter stumbled backward as quickly as he could and managed to avoid the brunt of the explosion, but the concussion force that followed sent him flying back and he braced himself for impact against the wall behind him.
Only instead of hitting the wall, he sailed through a massive hole where part of the wall had crumbled away. Heart-stopping fear hit him full force as his limited chances of survival became apparent. He was several stories high. His web shooters were broken. He couldn’t use the glider Tony had installed in his suit, nor the parachute.
As if that wasn’t enough, he saw a second missile follow him out as he began to fall. He curled into a little ball and it flew past, but then it hit the building right next door and blasted him forward again. Ironically, it may well have saved his life because it sent him crashing through a window into the empty floor below.
To say he was overwhelmed was a huge understatement. Shards of glass crunched under him as he struggled unsteadily to his hands and knees, heart thundering in his chest and breaths coming in quick, shuddering gasps. Searing pain was burning into his shoulder, his hand, his leg, and multiple other tiny areas where the napalm had eaten clean through his suit and was now licking into his skin.
He yanked his mask off with his good hand and pressed it shakily over the worst part of his shoulder to try and smother the flames, but it just oozed out from around the mask and spread further.
Heavy explosions continued to rock the ceiling above him, sending bits of plaster raining down into his hair. He trembled on his knees and wiped his flaming hand frantically against the ground in a desperate attempt to get the burning gel off. The pain only grew, like white hot brands being pressed into his body, and he whimpered as panic began to overtake him.
He was on fire. His body was burning and he didn’t know what to do.
Then a strong metal hand latched onto his upper arm and shoved him the rest of the way to the floor.
“Close your eyes and hold your breath!” Tony ordered sharply, other hand hovering above him. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away as a thick, cold substance sprayed over him. He was turned this way and that a few times but Peter just kept his eyes closed and let himself be maneuvered until every inch of napalm had been dowsed.
The grip on his arm tightened. “Hey. Open your eyes, Peter. You’re okay now,” Tony said, his voice stiff and urgent.
Peter obeyed, heart still racing and breath still coming in too harshly and too fast, and found Tony staring down at him. His mentor’s eyes were wide and piercing, his face lined with worry. He laid a hand on Peter’s chest, heavy and steadying.
“You’re okay, kiddo,” he repeated more softly. “Easy, just breathe nice and easy. You’re okay. It’s over. They’re done, they won’t be getting up for a long time.”
Peter closed his eyes and let out a long, shuddering breath as the fight or flight adrenaline slowly faded from his body. “Oh my God, thank you, Mr. Stark,” he mumbled mindlessly. “That got really scary.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Tony returned, closely inspecting Peter’s shoulder where the napalm had burned through his suit. He began to pick at the edges and pull the fabric away from Peter’s skin.
Peter jerked and hissed at the contact, his good hand flying up to clutch Tony’s wrist and still his movements.
“Your suit is melting into your skin,” his mentor explained, eyes briefly meeting Peter’s in silent apology. “I have to separate it before your skin starts to heal and fuse to it.”
After a second of hesitation, Peter let his hand drop and chewed on his lip as Tony carefully peeled at the edges. He sprayed more of the clear liquid over the burns as he worked and Peter slowly felt the stabbing pain begin to fade to a dull ache.
“Jesus Christ, kid,” Tony murmured as he moved down to Peter’s calf. “You really know how to shave years off a guy’s life.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to get that dangerous.”
Tony snorted softly and Peter struggled up into a sitting position, wincing when he put pressure on his wrist. “Really! I thought they were just squatters and went in to ask them to leave, and then... they had those things. But it still wasn’t so bad. And then when it kept getting worse and I knew I couldn’t call you, I was going to leave. Or at least try to leave. I’m really sorry.”
Tony paused his ministrations to look him in the eye and put a placating hand on his good shoulder. “Hey, I’m not mad. Do you think I’m mad?”
Peter furrowed his eyebrows. “No? I don’t know. It’s just. I don’t know, it seems like something you’d be mad about.”
“You didn’t know what you were getting yourself into, kid, it’s okay. I’m glad you were going to try to leave. You did the right thing, I’m proud.”
Peter’s face instantly lit up with a bright smile and Tony looked away again, rolling his eyes.
“Okay, settle down. Just do me a favor and don’t fly out a window on fire and then disappear out of the air when I look for you. I thought you were vaporized or went to another dimension or something.”
Peter couldn’t hold in a burst of laughter and Tony’s eyes shot back to him in disbelief. “What? All I knew was that they ‘did stuff’ and were ‘weird’.” He emphasized with air quotes. “That leaves a lot of possibilities, and I have a very active and negative imagination.”
Peter’s laughter died down. “How did you find me, anyway? How did you even know something was happening?”
“Well,” he started with a short exhale. He sprayed the last little bit of liquid in between Peter’s fingers and then sat back on his heels. “I got an alert that your suit shut down. Not that you took it off, but that it shorted out. And I knew it wasn’t you tampering with it because we agreed not to do that again,” Tony poked Peter’s chest gently, “So I suited up. Your tracker was offline but your stats kept having these power surges that would briefly light up your location. I got close enough and then just followed the sound of the apocalypse.”
“Wow,” Peter said quietly. “Good thing I kept getting electrocuted.”
“Good lord. Yeah I guess so.” Tony let out a humorless huff, then rose to his feet and helped Peter up. He couldn’t help releasing a pained groan as his aching muscles protested the movement. Worry lines returned to Tony’s face.
”How’re you feeling there, kiddo? What hurts?” His eyes darted over Peter’s body again.
Peter took a few seconds to just breathe and assess himself before answering. “Well, several things. But I’m not on fire anymore, so that’s an improvement. Actually the burns are hurting less than they should. I should be hurting more. And something smells really... chemically. Am I having a stroke?”
Peter could see the hint of a smile soften Tony’s features. “That’s the fire-retardant. I put an analgesic agent in it, but it smells like shit.”
“And it’s really slimey,” Peter added, wiping carefully at the clear goo before looking up at his mentor and taking in his ash-streaked and scorched armor.
“Are you okay, Mr. Stark?”
Tony gave him an amused smile and ruffled his hair. “I’m good now, kiddo, I was just worried about you. But come on, I need to call this in and then we can get you properly fixed up. That analgesic won’t last forever.”
As Tony began making calls, Peter wandered back towards the window he had crashed through, limping slightly. The sun was nearing the horizon. He glanced down to the road far below and shivered at the thought of his own body laying on the pavement.
He turned back around a few minutes later when Tony ended his call.
“Mr. Stark?”
Tony put his phone away and looked up at him. “What’s up?”
“You looked really cool.”
The older man grinned. “What, the entrance?”
Peter nodded emphatically and Tony gave a dramatic shrug as he walked closer. “Hey, it’s part of the gig, you gotta look intimidating.” He stopped when he was next to Peter, laid a hand on his shoulder, and stared down at him pointedly. “You’re still a work in progress in that department.”
Peter gave a good-natured laugh and let his mentor lead him away from the window.
“How about when I was on fire? I bet that looked even cooler.”
“It did!”