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It was lunch, and he had plans with MJ.
Pete had a table reserved at the cafe around the corner, right next to the Bugle, and his boss had let him off early so he could prepare.
He’s been spending a lot of time as Spider-Man lately. Ever since MJ went to Symkaria, he’d delved into crime-fighting even more than usual. The time difference had him staying up much later than he would normally just to talk to her for fifteen minutes before she had to go—so why not wait up as Spider-Man?
Miles had seen a lot more of him, too. Peter loved the kid and knew that if he spent the time alone, he’d just get sad and lost in his head. He also helped out a lot at FEAST, trying to make up for May and Li’s absences, and Miles was extra excited to have more Spider-Man training time.
Peter was pleased with his choices, and hoped May would be proud—Yeah, yeah, he knew, and MJ always reminded him how proud May always had been of him.
When he did have his inevitable alone time, he thought of MJ, and how much he missed her, and of all the dates he was going to take her on when she got back.
This was one he’d thought about quite a lot, rather simple, inelegant, yet cute and romantic. He’d section off as much time as she could spare for her lunch break, and just soak up her entire existence.
She’d only been gone a month, but it had been the longest month of Peter’s life.
So he changed into a fresh, non-sweaty button-up, combed his hair because the suit always flattened it, and bought a bouquet of roses—well, he’d wanted to, but he didn’t actually have the money for that many, so he just bought one.
This wasn’t a special occasion, except that it was. Any time he got to spend with her was special. He’d been thinking about asking her to marry him recently, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. That was a different conversation with a different person on a different occasion. He’d need all the advice Aunt May and Uncle Ben could give him.
The cafe was right next to the Bugle so she wouldn’t need to go far, and he was a block away, literally just across the street.
Waiting for the traffic light to change, he could see her through the glass window. She was ordering a glass of water for him and a hot cup of Earl Grey tea for herself. Her hair was pulled back the exact same way it always was, but it was brilliant red, the side-swept bangs full of life, the ponytail perfect. Her face was framed amazingly, and her eyes bright and glowing. Her cheeks were lovely and her lips plump. That button nose of hers hadn’t changed at all and he wanted to boop it, just to see her look down and laugh.
He couldn’t see her that clearly from all the way across the street, but he knew regardless that she was absolutely beautiful. Always.
He smiled, so glad that she was his, so happy that she was back in New York with him, so enthralled in his love for her that he was sure without a doubt that he was the luckiest guy on earth to have her love him back.
The traffic stopped for the light. His eyes longed to behold her again, his ears strained to hear her voice again, and his arms ached to hold her again. He wanted to just run as fast as he could across the street, but that’d mess his hair up and probably ruin the rose he carried, so instead, he just briskly walked amongst the crowds.
He wasn’t even halfway across before his spidey-sense warned him of something wrong. He stopped, confused, gazing around for the danger—then the first floor of the Daily Bugle exploded.
Every window on both the first and second floor blew outwards, showering the streets and civilians nearby in glass before pouring forth flames. People screamed and ran away. Others screamed and ran towards.
Peter was grouped with the latter, dropping the rose forgotten on the crosswalk and ripping his clothes off once inside the burning building—he always kept his suit on for occasions such as these.
The air itself was hot, and everything that could catch fire was on fire. His mask stopped him from breathing in most of the smoke, but it could only do so much, and he coughed, overwhelmed by the amount of chaos around him. His sensors couldn’t pick out any people that needed saving because everything was so much hotter than people were and couldn’t differentiate. Everything was red, so he disabled it.
Screaming came from every direction, and he couldn’t tell who was still stuck in here and needed help or who was outside safe but panicking. He’d never had opportunity to jump into the scene so quickly, so the initial fire and smoke from the bomb were still blazing excitedly, not having died down yet.
He crouched down to avoid a lot of the smoke, coughing, and slowly went about searching for anybody needing help, calling out loudly, raising his voice above the inferno as much as he could, “Hello? Does anybody need help?”
The fire roared around him, loud in his enhanced ears, but he still heard the faint call, “Help!”
It came from his right, so he turned, crouched around—and immediately recoiled, a sharp prick pierced his hand. He yelped and examined the wound, shocked to see that his suit was melting, burning his skin underneath.
(He had just modified it, attempting to eliminate the tearing and ripping from all the skidding and tumbling he does. He hadn’t considered the melting point of the enhanced polymer when he’d added it. It’d been working so well, but now he would need to modify it some more.)
He would need to stay away from as much fire as he could.
He finished turning the corner—and startled back, a blackened, fire-engulfed corpse laid across the path. He froze.
Sure, he’d seen people die, seen dead bodies before; a superhero didn’t get the luxury of skipping those cutscenes.
He wasn’t expecting it, wasn’t prepared to see all people that died just now in that explosion. He looked around. There were several, too many, laying atop a burning desk, crumpled in a corner, missing limbs, missing heads. It was a ghastly scene, horrifying to the highest degree. People were dead, burned alive—were burning alive as he stood there frozen.
He realized that the person calling for help had gone quiet, and he hopped the corpse to find out, putting the dead behind him in favor of saving the living.
“Hello? Where are you?”
Nothing.
No answer.
No heartbeat.
Another victim.
He could hear nothing but the roaring flames, the creaking of the building, the pulse of his own heart.
There was no one left alive.
His suit was rapidly melting, burning his fingers and toes, his palms and heels, and stretching up his arms and legs. He needed to get out—his date with MJ.
No. She was right next door. There was no way the cafe escaped the explosion unscathed.
But his arms were burning, his skin literally melting, and he needed to get out before he lost his mind and gave in to the pain.
Out was the way to MJ anyway.
He swung out through the closest window and collapsed to his knees coughing once he caught a breath of fresh air.
He only allowed himself seven seconds of recovery before jumping into action again, pointedly not taking a look at himself—he didn’t need to look to know that his flesh was mingling with the suit.
The cafe was in shambles, the windows shattered, and sign broken on the concrete. People were outside catching their breath, screaming, or otherwise freaking out, but he wasn’t really looking at the details. He needed to see one specific face and needed to see her alive and breathing—where was she? Where was she?
His heart raced—
She wasn’t among those out on the street, still moving.
—Thudded loud in his ears.
She wasn’t amongst the lifeless bodies being cradled in someone’s lap.
—Overwhelming his whole vision with redredred.
She wasn’t out here.
If she wasn’t out here, then she must be in there.
He dived over a car and through the broken door of their cafe, searching frantically for that familiar face. The shop was empty, evacuated, not even bodies were left to carry out. Fire engulfed the front counter, the tables, the chairs. Smoked painted the air, and heat baked it.
He couldn’t breathe.
Where was she?
His suit melted down his face and his hair singed.
Where was she?
Maybe there was a secret back door that she had escaped through—his flesh bubbled and burned, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, and then there were arms under his, dragging him somewhere, but he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t see, and his heart was pumping in his ears too loud to hear anything else.
And then he couldn’t hear anything at all.