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His spidey-sense never let him down.
It always had his back, and he never regretted impulsively acting on it—except when it embarrassed him. But this time, he genuinely had no idea what it was warning him about.
Yes, he knew the men he was chasing were dangerous, hence why he was chasing them, but that wasn’t it. He couldn’t explain it, but his spidey-sense had different volumes for different levels of danger that threatened him or his immediate surroundings—okay, maybe he could explain it—like an incoming bullet was level Oh no watch out dangerous cause he could probably dodge that, but a plummeting plane was level AAAAAAAHHHHHH cause that’s hard to dodge, especially if he were inside.
At least, it was something like that.
These punks? They were dangerous, but he wasn’t in any danger, so why was his spidey-sense warning him that he was?
He disrupted their break-in before they even broke in, knocked a few out, and unfortunately scared the others off, so he had to chase them down. There were only three that got away, and it felt like they were all heading the same direction—perhaps a meet-up location?
If they had a rendezvous point, he would hafta give them more credit for organization, and it probably meant that they had done this before.
Not good. He’d need to leave Yuri a note when he caught them—if that was what this actually was. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Peter.
He also needed to find out where they were organizing. Perhaps that was their headquarters, or an up-and-coming headquarters. If they were grouping and massing together, he’d need to put a stop to it before they became large enough to have bases.
Yeah, yeah, this was all speculation. He didn’t actually know, he just suspected, and with his spidey-sense warning him of danger, he didn’t want to take any chances and underestimate them.
Swinging above, he watched from a distance as the man in the lead turned right, down through an alley that came to a dead-end because the construction on the road—was it Spider-Man’s fault the entire alley was torn up and the road in shambles? Noooo, That was Hammerhead’s…
He could let them turn around and keep going, but that was practically giving away his plan to follow them to their hideout, and surely they weren’t that stupid. He’d have to confront them there and have MJ look into the idea of a rising gang.
He landed on the top of the three-story building above their heads and perched on the edge. It was all too fun to rile them up and watch the fear grow behind their eyes as he picked them off one by one—ego much?—so he flung webbing at the wall in front of him. All three of them jumped and backed away, not paying attention to their surroundings—which was pretty stupid, cause they knew Spider-Man was after them and Spider-Man has a thing for the high ground.
Snatching one from the ground and webbing him into a cocoon was easy, but the alleyway was already pretty quiet apart from their scared gasping and trembling, so the remaining two caught Peter in the act. One man, clearly the most frightened, just stood there watching, and the other grabbed a baseball bat from near the dumpster behind him.
Peter caught the frightened one in his sights—and goodness gracious, the man looked like he was going to wet himself.
Maybe they weren’t grouping together…
Come on, you shouldn’t be in a gang in the city Spider-Man protects if you were this scared of Spider-Man. Most of the criminals in this city had relatively low common sense, though, so honestly? This kind of thing was expected.
Peter jumped down to start webbing them to the walls—and to see if that man would actually wet himself from face-to-face interaction—landing in his customary crouch—sticking the landing like a pro—before stretching to his full menacing height—was five-ten tall enough to be menacing or just scary?
“Are you really going to try to fight me?”
Nah, the poor man passed out on the spot.
“Oh, man,” Peter laughed, throwing his head back and turning to the last guy, “Love it when they do that!”
He twisted around and shot a web at the unconscious body for good measure, sticking him to the concrete for the next several hours until the police arrived.
The other guy stepped back towards the fence that stretched across the path, raising the bat and ready to swing. He didn’t seem as threatened or scared—and there was something off about his face. Peter squinted, his spidey-sense still warning him of something. Since this was the last man standing, he had to have been the thing his spidey-sense was warning him of, but he only had a bat. He was practically harmless.
Wasn’t he?
Was there something this man was hiding?
Peter took a step forward, confident as Spider-Man had the right to be, approaching with his head tilted and eyes squinted, on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary, focused on the man’s stance, his attire, his posture for concealed weapons, anything.
His face was all sorts of wrong—reminded Pete of Sylvester Stallone, because of the muscle tissue in his face, and maybe—that’s it!
This man had no facial reactions, almost like he didn’t even have muscles in his face, deformed and forced onto the street homeless. Happened way too often, and it was a damn shame. This city has failed so many in so many ways.
Now, Peter didn’t want to turn him in to the police, just wanted to help him. If he was resorting to robbery, he must be desperate and scared. FEAST could definitely help a lot more than the police or even Spider-Man could.
He hunched slightly, trying to seem as non-threatening as much as he could after that stunt he just pulled with the previous two men, holding his hands out defensively to gain trust, “Hey man, I don’t want to hurt you, I just—”
He took a step forward, his spider-sense amping up exponentially, halting his words, but gravity stopped for no man, and his eyes widened as the bear trap concealed beneath his foot snapped closed before he could figure out what was even wrong.
The already quiet alley echoed with the sound of crunching bone and the squelch of teeth piercing flesh, followed by the thump of a body, and a scream that was ripped from his throat without consent.
Peter lost all sense of his surroundings, clouded by the haze of sharp wrongness that accompanied the agony encompassing his lower left leg. His vision swam as he tried to assess the damage. His breathing stuttered to a halt, hoping that the pain coursing through his veins would halt as well, but it didn’t. It increased all the more.
He couldn’t see straight so he just squeezed his eyes tight and took in a steady measured breath, attempting to wait out the pain.
As he waited, he realized that his body had moved of its own accord, at least, he didn’t remember collapsing to the ground, curling onto his side, and gripping just below his knee on his left leg with both his hands. The grip was strong enough that he was probably cutting off circulation, but that was okay. He could feel the wetness soaking upward through his suit, and that needed to stop ASAP.
He cracked his eyes open to get a look at it, trying once again to assess the damage, and he blinked the blurriness away, pointedly ignoring the way his mask damped around his eyes as he did so.
The wound didn’t look as bad as it could have, considering he couldn’t see most of it because his suit stayed intact. He’d built this one well, not ripping completely with the trap, but most likely bending with it, into the puncture wounds and probably starting up a good infection.
He took another measured breath, gaining more sense of his surroundings, as he hesitantly reached out to touch the trap. It hurt like hell to the point where his concentration was thrown completely out the window and it needed to stopStopStop. Through clenched teeth, he released another scream, trying to hold himself together.
Gaining more sense of his surroundings meant remembering that he’d been chasing some men, had one man left, and that he was still standing there.
Peter lifted his head off the cold concrete to survey the man, needing to decide which matter was more pressing at the moment: stopping the pain and bleeding or stopping this petty criminal.
Since the man was just watching him suffer, watching him lie there, writhing in agony, and not running away, he’d say that he was more than Peter’d originally assumed, more dangerous. And he already had Spider-Man crumpled on the ground at his feet.
Noticing that Spider-Man was watching him, he locked eyes and approached slowly, one hand lazily swinging that baseball bat and the other pulling off a silicone mask, revealing an older face with dark eyes—even in the dim, street lamp light haloing his head were those eyes dark—hey, that was what was up with his face—facial hair that Stark would envy, and a malicious glint in his eye.
Peter swallowed. Yep. He was in trouble.
“After years of studying your movements,“ the man drawled, crouching down near Peter far enough away so as to not be punched in the face—as if Pete could punch him in that smug face right now—but close enough that the spittle from his pronunciations still splattered Peter’s mask, “I am at last one step ahead of you.”
Peter swallowed down the pain—good God it hurt—his leg throbbed in tandem with his heartbeat, and he grit his teeth, resting his head back on the ground to hide his already-veiled expression and growling low and long to release more tension—and pain, God, so much pain needed to be released. This hurt like a mother, and he wanted to just scream some more, but no way would he let on how badly he was hurt.
He knew he had to get the claws out, knew this situation was very dangerous for him, and knew that with the way this man was talking, he probably had something else up his sleeve. Peter would need to tread carefully—but to tread, he needed to at least walk.
There would, of course, be immense pain upon removing the trap from his muscles and bone—a lot of blood too, but there was already a lot of blood, so much so that his blue suit was turning dark purple—but he couldn’t give this guy the opportunity to take advantage of a weakened Spider-Man like that.
Sure he was already considerably weakened, and that man had done nothing but stand there and watch—psychopath—but this was dying to a manageable level the more he breathed and the more he waited. Who knew how much worse it’d get when he removed it?
No, he’d have to leave it for now, escape with it still wrapped around his leg, and fix it when he was in the clear. Which meant he’d have to take this guy down fast before he lost too much blood and passed out in the streets of New York—or worse, while he was swinging.
The man continued, “I didn’t expect the great Spider-Man to be brought down so easily…”
Great. An arrogant criminal. Those were the worst kinds, but the higher they built their towers, the easier it was to topple them.
As he spoke, Peter took the time to breath more—breathing was the key to dealing with pain, the wrong rhythm could make the pain worse—slowly maneuver himself so that he wasn’t laying on his side, but had his knees under him, with his bad leg propped off the ground. Moving his leg at all hurt like hell, and eyes clenched shut again, his ears ringing, and he didn’t hear a word Mr. Bear Hunter over there was saying. He was just trying very hard to not start crying.
On his elbows and knees, Peter rested his forehead against the concrete, relishing the coolness as a welcome reprieve from the fire in his leg. If he so much as twitched his toes, the burning flared up and he would almost swear that his blood was boiling in his veins. With every shift of his leg, every movement in his frame, the thin metal teeth of the trap scraped against his bones, shifting them from where they were supposed to be, and the muscle tore all the more.
Not only did he not want to move it, he knew he shouldn’t because he was making the injury that much worse, but he had to. He had to stop this man and get out of here.
The position he put himself in wasn’t great by any means. Holding his calf elevated would help against blood loss, but his muscle was practically shredded. How would it be able to hold such a position for very long at all?
His spidey-sense ramped up suddenly, and he twisted his head, eyes automatically focusing on the foot coming at him, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t dodge it in his vulnerable position, so he just clenched his teeth to brace himself for it—his jaw was going to be so sore after this.
The swinging leg made contact with his abdomen, not hurting much compared to the rest of the pain, but it knocked him over, twisted him onto his back, and his leg slammed down.
White was all he could see.
Ringing was all he could hear.
Blood was all he could smell, pain was all he could feel, and screams were all he could taste.
More pain barraged his ribcage, and suddenly, he could taste blood too.
Color was overcoming the white in his vision, and he watched almost lazily as the man swung that baseball bat right at him. Peter’s brain was engaged enough this time to roll over and dodge it, but the pain made him fall short. The bat clipped his back on the way down but didn’t really make contact.
Peter groaned, his senses flaring again, warning him the man was about to take another swing.
He didn’t have time for this! He needed to stop this man yesterday. How had it gotten this far?
He was Spider-Man for goodness sakes! He was super-strong, super-flexible, super-awesome. How could he have been brought so low so quickly by someone so irrelevant?
Wait!
Irrelevant? Not likely.
Peter was good with math, good with statistics. This was in the 7th percentile. No way would a petty homeless man, desperate for cash, be carrying a bear trap and a baseball bat around with him when being chased by Spider-Man.
This was a set-up. It’d been a ploy, a trap this whole time. This man wasn’t just anybody—he’d said it, hadn’t he? That he’d been studying Spider-Man for years?
This had been a trap. The man knew to take down Spider-Man, he’d need to ground him, take out his ability to jump around, and he’d done just that. Peter was practically in the guy’s clutches. This wasn’t just a dangerous situation, Peter could very well die!
He tuned back into what the guy was saying, needing to catch the plot of it all.
“—going to be rich! Wonder how much Hammerhead will pay for your body—”
Body?
Body?
So this man intended to kill him and sell him to Hammerhead? He would be rich, with how much that maggia don hated him.
Pete needed to get out of here!
“—or do you think he’d want you alive? I think he’d prefer that way because taunting a dead body is no fun at all!”
Oh my God, it’s like he’s speaking from experience!
What kind of luck did Peter have to not only attract the attention of a criminal, but of a criminal that murders people???
Peter twisted around to lay on his back, aimed his arms up to shoot a web toward—that bat came back, impacting his right wrist, and his web-shooter exploded in white goo. Broken on impact.
But his left succeeded, connecting to the roof of the three-story building he’d perched on earlier. He gripped that web like his life depended on it, and hefted with his one arm, holding his right to his chest to protect it—he hadn’t felt the pain yet, hadn’t felt anything from that wrist yet, but he knew it didn’t look right, didn’t look right at all.
Lifting himself with his left arm, he used his right leg to kick off and crawl up the wall to safety. But his spidey-sense was tingling.
“Where do you think you’re going,” he heard right before the bat made another appearance. He should have eliminated the threat before attempting to flee, well at least attempting to flee slowly.
Luckily for Peter, the bat missed his leg. Unluckily for him, it hit the tail end of the bear trap instead.
He collapsed back to the ground, scream cut off when Mr. Bear Hunter swung at his ribs again.
His lungs stuttered, all air abandoning him, while his leg continued to melt from the agony.
But his mind stayed sharp—this wasn’t his first rodeo. He’s had injuries more agonizing that this.
“Face it, Spidey, you can’t escape me. Just give up.”
The guy stood there, watching as Pete caught his breath, watching to find out if Spider-Man was gonna just give up—psh! Come on! And this guy had been watching him for years?
“‘Give up’ schmiv-up!” He gasped out, “Not in your life!”
Pete still had one web-shooter on one arm and one leg left. Half of his body still worked, and this guy wasn’t even half the criminal he thought he was.
Peter needed to fight back instead of fleeing, and then flee.
He was starting to get lightheaded and glancing away showed a trail of blood between his position on the ground and the spot five yards away where the trap first was.
He was bleeding a lot, and he needed to stop it fast, but the man was near again, winding back as if to take yet another swing. Peter absolutely did not want to take another hit—he wasn’t a piñata, and that guy wasn’t even blindfolded—so he in turn wound back to take his first hit, levering his leg and kicking out before the man could swing that infernal bat.
His foot smashed into the man’s groin—yeeaahh that might’ve been on purpose. Hey! This guy deserved it—and he fell back, dropping the bat, and landing on his ass. Pete didn’t hesitate on his opportunity, webbing the guy to the ground, and again, and again, and like hell was this guy ever going to have another opportunity to hurt Spier-Man, so he shot him one more time before falling back to lay on the ground, soaking in the cool of the concrete.
Rest was unwise at this time because he could still feel the bleeding, could still feel the pulsing agony in his leg, and his right wrist wasn’t feeling that good either. Exhaustion began setting in, though, weakening him and draining away all energy. He wanted to just sleep, but he knew if he did, he would only be in a worse position when he woke around policemen, or worse EMTs.
He knew the longer he laid there, the harder it’d be to get up, so without hesitation, he sat up and shook his head to clear away the sleepiness. He knew it was because of the blood loss, which meant he needed to get this taken care of immediately. He needed a tourniquet but his suit wasn’t fitted with any belts—his webs were the answer to everything he ever needed in life.
Four yards of webbing would be way overkill, but his healing factor had a tendency to not work in his favor sometimes, so four yards of webbing would be perfect. He needed to make sure his spider-healing didn’t adapt to the tourniquet too fast and render it obsolete. He also needed to make sure blood couldn’t get out anymore, and that his flesh didn’t heal around the spikes in his leg.
A hospital was sounding more necessary than MJ’s living room, but he seriously didn’t want to go to the hospital.
With great power comes great responsibility. And in this case, with great pain came great responsibility, and sometimes being responsible means doing things you don’t want to do.
The hospital it was.
Swinging with only one arm wasn’t fun; took a lot of coordination and focus that his aching leg didn’t want to afford him. But his wrist must’ve broken clean, cause halfway there, he could use it again, and figured he’d call Yuri to report the Bad Guys that just tried to kill him.
“Hey, Yuri,” his voice was strained as it always was when he swung through the city, “I’ve got good news!”
“Let me guess, you took down some thugs, got hurt yourself, and now you’re heading to the hospital?”
Wow, she was good.
“How do you do that? It’s scary.”
“In all seriousness Spider-Man, are you okay? You’re leaving a trail of blood through the streets, and people are complaining. People are also worried.”
Well hot damn, he thought his tourniquet would keep it at bay for longer.
“And by people, you mean you? Aw, Yuri, are you worried about me?”
He was close, next ten seconds, could see it just ahead. But his vision was also blurring and he needed to stay awake to tell them to leave his mask on.
“In this case, yes. Not even you can survive losing this much blood for long—and don’t worry about the staff—“ He landed on the roof, next to the door access and limped down the stairs—“I’ve already called them.”
Well, that was good, considering that he lost feeling in his last good leg and tumbled down the rest of the steps. He wasn’t conscious when he landed, but even unconscious he knew he was safe in the hospital. Yuri always had his back, always knowing exactly who to call.