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The first thing he was aware of was a sweetness in his mouth, and he wondered if he perhaps forgot to brush his teeth last night. Everyone forgot from time to time, but this flavor was also extremely terrible, leaving a cold, crusty feeling in his mouth, and maybe he had a dream about cupcakes and lollipops cause there was drool all over him, too.
The second thing he was aware of was that his bed had never felt more uncomfortable. How old was this mattress? It was as hard as the floor, but worse somehow. Maybe he’d fallen asleep on the roof? It wouldn’t be the first time.
About the same time was the realization that he was still in the Spider-Man suit, reinforcing the idea that he’d fallen asleep on the roof—but the roof was all hard concrete and accidental scrapes. This was more giving but still firm and unyielding—perhaps wood?
The third thing he was aware of was that he was horribly and incredibly nauseated. That was most likely what had woken him up. He wondered what he’d eaten the night prior, but the slightest thought of food made his stomach roll—like, seriously roll—like he really needed to get this mask off right now!
There was something hard above him, some sort of barrier that he knocked his knuckles into, but he didn’t ponder it—the vomit was all too real for side-tracked thoughts.
He yanked his mask off in the cramped space and tried to twist to the side, but he knocked his forehead into the barrier above and his knuckles into another barrier on his left—the thought of turning to the right crossed his mind, but time didn’t permit.
The vomit surged.
It was like acid, burning his throat and sinuses, hitting the strange barrier and splattering back onto his face. It was primarily liquid, not chunky at all, and considering that he’d just woken up, he’d probably forgotten to eat dinner entirely last night—oh no, another thought of food—and then more vomit surged.
His throat would heal from the acid sludge so that he didn’t have to depart from his normal routine of comedic commentator, which meant the smell and backsplash were the worst parts. Yeah, his healing would take care of the chemical burns, but faces were always the worst, and with his luck, he’d be sprouting some acne for the next few days.
As for the smell? It was weak and low, slightly pungent, which meant it was in fact mostly stomach acid and bile and very little food—especially if his spider-smell couldn’t pick it up easily.
Plus, it wasn’t actually that much, but the unpleasant sensation in his stomach warned him that there could be more if he wasn’t careful.
Way to go, Parker, didn’t eat again and made yourself sick.
He turned his head, closed his eyes, and tried to take deep even breaths—god he needed a glass of water. It’d been ages since he last threw up, his metabolism and enhanced healing always ate away whatever virus or ingested chemicals tried to hurt him before it could do much damage. Whatever he ate—“ingested”! Use “ingested”—whatever he’d ingested must’ve really wrecked his system—and it had to have been ingested, cause he didn’t feel sick at all.
Well, his body sorta ached, but it didn’t really hurt. It felt like how you’d feel if you slept on a hardwood floor all night instead of your bed—hardwood floor! That was it!
He was lying on hardwood floor!
But what were those barriers? Was he under his bed?
He opened his eyes and braced his palms on the—wait, he closed his eyes? No, he’d opened them…
Had they been open this whole time?
But it was dark, like super dark—like he had enhanced vision and still couldn’t see a single thing.
He’d always been able to see, always. Even in the dark subway tunnels when Electro zapped the power—even then he could see. But now he couldn’t?
It was like the time his class went to the caverns on a field trip in the tenth grade. When the guide turned out all the lights, nobody could see anything, not even their hands in front of their faces, except him. His spider-vision could still see, very little, but enough to see that Flash was genuinely freaking out and very nearly punched himself in the face—it was like that field trip as if he was one of them, freaking out cause they couldn’t see.
He felt panic creeping up his spine, but he tried to think through it, tried to keep calm and rational and use his brain instead of his senses.
Why couldn’t he see?
Was it a blindfold? No, his mask was crumpled in his right fist.
Were his eyes closed? Psh, he wasn’t stupid, but he deliberately blinked just in case. No, his eyes were open.
Was his occipital lobe damaged? He slowly brought a hand up to gently probe the base of his skull. No, there was no pain and no blood, so that was just fine.
Was it his eyes? There wasn’t really a way to test if they were working without light, so this question would have to remain unanswered for now. But dear God, it couldn’t be his eyes—how would it possibly be his eyes? They weren’t hurting, weren’t bleeding, weren’t watering at all, weren’t even dry and itchy. They felt completely fine and normal—
Maybe he was actually really sick? He did throw up twice right after waking up. He could very well be sick. Some strange sickness that caused nausea and blindness and he’d already thrown up and now he’d lost his eyesight, and—oh this was just stupid, it was more likely that one of his enemies got ahold of him and gouged out his…gouged…
The panic that was slowly creeping up his neck was suddenly surging down his throat, and he threw his hands up as fast as he could to check on his eyes, scraping them on that stupid barrier, gaining a few splinters in his knuckles—but yes, he still had eyes.
He still had eyes, and didn’t he just check that? He was okay, but was he really? He was losing his mind, freaking out over his eyes twice in less than ten seconds, and now he was breathing heavily, on top of having just thrown up, too.
He left his hands resting on his face as he drew in labored and precise breaths, or tried to. Breathing was difficult, as if his lungs didn’t want to absorb the oxygen from the air—
Then he realized that his spidey-sense was SCREAMING at him, buzzing at the highest frequency that it could, and his eyes widened even though he couldn’t see anything. What the hell—where had that come from!?
It was screaming as if it were trapped behind a glass window, banging relentlessly, trying to break the glass with it’s own innate force—but in this case, the glass was his mind, and he was pretty sure he was straight-up losing it.
Why hadn’t he noticed before? It was unusual for his spidey-sense to be amped up to such a degree out of complete nowhere. It had to have been warning him of imminent danger for a while now to have climbed to such a height. Why was he just now noticing?
What was going on!?
He’d thrown up twice; he couldn’t see; his spider-sense was screaming like he was literally dying or something, and he was starting to panic, had been panicking for a hot minute now, just now realizing that he was panicking and needed to get it under control, and he tried, was trying, trying to slow his breaths and calm down but again, his lungs didn’t want to play nice—
He was literally dying. It came to him in an instant, puzzle pieces sliding into place, and he felt foolish for not having seen it earlier.
Drooling like he was at the dentist? Sweetness in his mouth? Vomiting upon waking? Grogginess and slow thoughts? Clearly chloroform.
Hardwood beneath him? Barrier above him leaving splinters in his knuckles? Complete and total darkness? He was in a coffin, one of the old-timey ones, most likely buried deep underground so light couldn’t get through at all.
Labored breathing? Panic not subsiding as it should with proper ventilation? Spidey-sense off the charts? He was running out of oxygen.
He was literally dying.
It was obviously one of his enemies that did this, especially since he was still in his Spider-Man getup. His mask had still been intact, which meant that whoever had done this didn’t care about his identity. Enough chloroform to knock him out and make him completely forget everything relating to how in the world this happened most likely meant that his enemy had tried to kill him, thought he’d killed Spider-Man, and buried him—somewhere most likely where no one would accidentally stumble upon him.
Peter just hoped that the adverse side effects of chloroform poisoning that targeted the heart and liver were already healing and wouldn’t leave him permanently damaged—imagine that, swinging through the city chasing bad guys, and he had to stop to rest because his heart couldn’t take it.
Nah, if he could heal from a broken back, he could heal from chloroform poisoning—and his still being alive was swaying it in his favor—but what if he actually already died from it, and now he’s a zombie—or what if he died, but his healing was so good that it brought him back—come on, though, he was buried in a coffin as if he was supposed to be dead, so what if he—
How long has he been down there? How long has the city gone unchecked?
Was Aunt May okay? Mary Jane? Miles?
What were—he gasped, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t finish those thoughts properly.
He was literally dying, and it was hard to keep the panic at bay, and with panic came fear and with fear came sarcasm and humor, but he couldn’t actually talk out loud cause he was running out of air, and who knew how long he’d already been down there—oh who was he kidding, that didn’t even matter! What mattered was getting out!
He shoved his palms against the top and pushed, not too hard, not with spider-strength, but just testing it. He needed to know how deep he was buried—and yeah, he was buried because he could smell (vomit and mildew and sweat and blood and—) soil and plants—because while he could lift several tons, if he was buried deep enough, he might end up pushing himself deeper instead—depending on what was beneath him, of course (concrete, foundation, or more earth? Not so much, but another casket buried years ago? He’d be making a new friend!).
If he was the standard six feet deep, and this box was approximately seven feet long and two point five feet wide, then there were about a hundred and five cubic feet of dirt atop him, equalling almost four point four tons—and that was hoping it hadn’t rained last night.
Could he even lift that much?
He knew he was strong, could lift rubble from a collapsed building off his back, but he’d never actually measured his strength.
His arms braced against the lid, and he hadn’t even started pushing before his arms started shaking, which meant that he was seriously running low on oxygen.
He braced his arms further, reducing the trembling, and began pushing, desperately needing out, not realizing how much he absolutely did not like the cramped space until he was forced to think about what if he never got out or what if he was dead and was stuck there forever or, or, or…
He didn’t want to be stuck there forever. He hadn’t really tried to move around much, but he knew the if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to, and that would just freak him out further.
He couldn’t do it. He would go crazy, run out of jokes to tell himself, run out things to remember, run out ways to keep himself himself. He couldn’t do it.
He had to get out, and he had to get out now.
His arms weren’t shaking anymore—but the rest of him was—and they strained against the lid, against the four point four tons of weight literally pinning him in place, strained against the tears that threatened to leak from his panic, strained against the panic that tried so hard to rip his mind apart.
He was suddenly all too aware of how scared he was, and he felt like all of five years old again, those days after losing his parents and not knowing how to feel or what he was feeling, not knowing how to be scared of not having them anymore, so he was scared of the dark instead, scared of heights, scared of everything.
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t calm down, couldn’t stop shaking, and couldn’t get this stupid lid off this stupid—
Oh.
He did it.
His eyes snapped shut automatically to hide from the all-consuming brightness as he gasped in the much-needed oxygen mingled with flecks of dirt and soil that fluttered through the air, but more dirt was quickly falling atop him, threatening to bury him alive again, so he shot a web-line out in the air wherever, he wasn’t looking or aiming, and as soon as he felt it tighten from sticking to something solid, he yanked himself out on shaking arms and collapsed on his hands and knees on top of the pile of dirt.
He gulped in clean air this time, heard gasping and muttering, engines in the distance, and the rushing of water close by.
His head hung down, hiding his eyes from as much light as he could before opening them to slowly become accustomed again. His vision immediately narrowed and focused onto the crumpled mask still in his right fist, and he realized that he was out in the open with people and cell phones around and no mask on.
But, calm down, Peter. No one could see you with your posture like so.
He slowly and carefully maneuvered his mask over his head while still keeping ducked to avoid clear pictures. He knew he was back in the clear when his spidey-sense finally stopped bugging him, and he zipped up to the top of the nearest tree to get off the ground and take in his surroundings.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar place, the cemetery. He came by often to visit Uncle Ben.
The scary part was that he had been buried as Spider-Man in the empty plot right next to Uncle Ben.