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Peter was a procrastinator. His aunt has been getting on him for months about being better at finding gifts, and he’d been trying to listen to her. Holidays had a way of sneaking up on him. He always debated on gifts, going back and forth, never feeling like anything was good enough. And then it was too late.
So, Peter had been paying attention. He’d been watching his aunt for months to get some ideas on what to get her for Christmas, and he noticed that she always sighed dreamily whenever she saw Pandora jewelry. He saved up enough to get his aunt something from the overly expensive store, and walked in on a mission. He’d even left his suit at home to keep it from tempting him to patrol. Getting his aunt a gift was the sole purpose of his visit that day.
He looked around at the various necklaces and bracelets, the bright lights under the counter giving him a headache.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” A kind woman asked from behind the counter. She was around his age, and Peter was pretty sure every single piece of jewelry she was wearing was from the store. He wondered if the store loaned them to her or if she really made that much money to spend it all on jewelry. Or maybe they had killer employee discounts?
He shook off his train of thought and answered her. “Uh, yeah. I’m looking for a Christmas present for my aunt. She loves the jewelry but-” he stopped himself from saying we couldn’t ever afford it . “She never buys that kind of stuff for herself.”
The lady smiled kindly. “Well, is she a necklace kind of person? Or would you want to look at the bracelets?”
Upon seeing the bracelets and charms were sold separately, too expensive to buy both, he decided to look at the necklaces. A delicate silver chain with a sparkly daisy charm caught his eye. May loved daisies.
“This one! This is perfect,” he said.
The lady rang him up, and Peter headed out the door, the tingle of the bell announcing his departure.
He was feeling so good about the day's adventure, he decided to look for other Christmas presents. Mentally calculating each stop to determine the shortest course, he decided to go to the toy store first. Morgan would love the new LEGO Spider-Man set.
The LEGO store near Rockefeller Center may have been out of his way, but Peter really liked that particular one. The dragon made of legos that spanned the whole store never ceased to amaze him, even if he was a teenager. He walked in, all wide eyed with wonder, and determined to bring Ned back here. It’d been awhile since they’d gone together. Peter refrained from his desire to buy the entire store (with the credit card Tony had given to him, he probably could), and found the perfect set for Morgan.
He walked out of that store practically glowing. Something about getting all this done just made him feel great. And he’d gotten all his homework done in homeroom, so he was scotch free to enjoy his day. He decided to get one more present, this one for MJ. It required two stops.
The first one was the Lindt truffle store. There was one close by, one of the only ones that he knew of anywhere, and he nearly moaned when he walked in and was washed over with the sweet, delicious, take-your-worries-away scent of chocolate. He ate the free sample they gave him, then walked around the small, fairly crowded store until he found just the right truffles for MJ (and a few for himself, of course).
He should’ve known the amazing mood wouldn’t last long. After all, Parker luck was practically the story of Peter’s life.
He was walking down Broadway, eating a Hazelnut truffle and savoring every bite, when a scream caught his attention. He cursed his former self for stupidly leaving his suit at home.
It didn’t take long for him to find the source of the commotion. An apartment building was on fire, a young woman screaming for her husband and little girl who were evidently still inside. The firemen were busy getting other people out.
Without really stopping to think (the women reminded him of May and it clouded his thinking), Peter snuck behind the reporters and fire engines. It was distracting enough to let him hide his purchases in a bush and slip into the building’s open back door unnoticed. He wished he’d brought his suit to help with the smoke inhalation and the lack of ability to see, but his super hearing was there, at least. He could hear someone calling for help.
Peter knew it was stupid of him to barge in with no protection. He was superhuman, but still human. However, he didn’t care. He just wanted to help the woman and her family.
Coughing with every step, his lungs burning, he pressed on. The little girl and her dad were counting on him. He just had to get to them.
A board fell down somewhere close by, Peter’s sixth sense helping him flip out of the way just in time. He didn’t need to be a genius to know the building was close to collapsing. He had to get to the people and get out of there quick.
Hearing the cries for help get louder, Peter moved a little quicker.
He wasn’t prepared for the sight that met his eyes when he could finally see the two.
The little girl was crying, calling for her father who had collapsed on the ground. Peter only heard one heartbeat.
Forcing back the memories of Ben and Tony (Tony had survived, but him nearly dying had been enough) and tried to focus on the little girl.
“Hey, sweetheart. Let’s get out of here, huh?”
She recoiled at the sight of him. “I want my daddy and my mommy!” She yelled.
Peter spoke as gently as he could, though his heart was pounding and he couldn’t keep all the desperation and urgency out of his voice. “I know. Your mommy’s outside, and I’ll carry your daddy out, okay?” The little girl nodded, and a wave of relief washed over peter. “You’re gonna have to be very brave, okay. Think you can hold onto my shirt and follow me out?” The girl nodded again, and Peter picked up the body of her father as the girl twisted his shirt into a knot.
Peter had nightmares of having to carry Ben’s body back to May. Or Tony’s back to Pepper. They hadn’t been very heavy thanks to his super strength, but they had seemed to weigh a ton. Maybe that had just been the weight in his heart.
This felt like living that nightmare.
Sure, he didn’t know this man or the little girl, but Peter has failed. He’d failed Ben and he’d failed this man. He tried to keep his sobs quiet and kept talking to the little girl, Maya, she told him her name was, as they slowly made their way to the window.
They were on the second story. It didn’t take much for Peter to break the glass, gulping air greedily and helping Maya get some too. The firefighters quickly jumped into action, using the ladder to reach them.
Maya went first, Peter insisted, then her dad’s body. Peter waited for his turn, watching the fire carefully as it got closer and closer. He seriously thought about jumping. He wouldn’t get seriously hurt, but it would definitely expose his superhero identity.
Suddenly, a shock went down his spine, and then the world exploded.
Peter was thrown backwards by the force of the blast. His shoulder seared with pain as he hit the side of the wall, which was quickly joined by the pain in his side as it scraped against the broken glass of the window. And then he was falling. He tried to use his webs to catch his fall, forget about secret identity, but there wasn’t anything there. He closed his eyes and braces to hit the concrete.
Instead, his stomach jolted as he landed on a well-placed trampoline and bounced once, then twice before coming to a stop.
Gulping in breaths, trying to reconcile the last 15 minutes that had seemed like 15 lifetimes, Peter sat there. He was numb, unable to move or think or do anything but answer quietly when emergency responders asked him his name and other basic questions as they bandaged his arm, side, face.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. Once he’d been patched up and determined to have no concussion, he was left alone in favor of other more pressing matters, his only company the images of Maya’s dead Father, whose face morphed back and forth between his own and Ben’s and Tony’s.
Suddenly, a voice caught his attention and broke through the macabre thoughts.
“Peter!”
It was MJ. Her eyes were wide as she approached him. She slowly, carefully wrapped her arms around Peter, seeming to understand without words what he needed.
And that was all it took for the dam to break.
MJ didn’t shy away from his tears. She held him as he sobbed, broken words breaking through.
“Fire...little girl...couldn’t save...widow...Ben, Tony...failed.”
MJ just tightened her hold, patient and unmoving as stone, and moved her hand from its tight, grounding grip on his back to his curls to rub his soothing circles into his scalp.
“I was trying...and I couldn’t-“
“I know, I know,” she soothed, her heart aching for him. “I came because I saw an alert on my phone about the fire, and I just knew that you would be brave and stupid enough to run in. Even though you told me you didn’t have your suit today.”
Peter gave a small, watery chuckle that tickled her shoulder.
“You are not responsible to save everyone, Peter. It is not your fault. Don’t beat yourself up for this.”
Peter nodded, and MJ kissed his forehead.
“I’ll be back,” she whispered. She walked over to the fire fighters. “Listen, I'm going to take him to his doctor. He has some...specific medical needs that he needs to see a specialist for. Is he free to go?” They reluctantly agreed, and MJ thanked them before pulling out her phone and making a call. “Happy? Yeah, code red. Can you come get us?”
She’d made Peter give her the driver’s phone number after her boyfriend had showed up covered in blood and freaked her out. He’d called Happy, and she’d gotten his number in case anything like that happened again.
MJ held him all the way to the compound after they retrieved his stuff, all the way to the medbay and through getting checked up by Dr. Cho (with Tony hovering like a worried mother hen), and the entire time as they watched a movie, cuddled together in a pile of love and support with Tony and May.
She knew the emotional scars took longer to heal than the physical ones, and there would be rough times as they dealt with those. But she was happy to hold him through it all; she wasn’t letting go any time soon.