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“Dude. Not cool!” Peter shouts to Ock, still catching his breath after having been bodily thrown off the bridge.
It is freezing.
Peter was already thinking of wrapping up on today’s patrol—the weather only got worse the later into the night he stayed out.
Then Ock just has to show up and start a fight on a bridge of all places. If this had been during the day, Peter couldn’t imagine the traffic jam this would’ve created. Ock then promptly throws Peter off the bridge, because there’s only room for one apparently.
In his defense, Peter would’ve caught himself before hitting the water if not for Ock slicing away his webs from where they had connected back to the bridge.
Now here Peter is. Shivering and struggling to breathe through the mask, smothering him now that it’s wet.
He treads the water and looks up at Ock, who seems quite satisfied with the current situation, much to Peter’s dismay. His fingers and toes are already going numb, and the treading becomes more an act of muscle memory than movements with feeling. Peter tries to web himself back to the bridge, but he finds his spinnerets (and what a weird thing to think, his spinnerets) unresponsive. Kicking his feet a little harder in the water, Peter pulls back the suit from around his wrists just enough to have a look.
The spinnerets are numb, and Peter finds that he can’t properly flex the muscles required to let out webs. Of course they don’t work in the cold, it’s just Peter’s luck. It’s probably why his forearms have been aching all patrol today—something he should’ve probably paid more attention to.
“Hey, gimme a hand up will you?” Peter shouts at Ock, who probably can’t even hear him with how high up he is. It’s actually a miracle Peter didn’t get injured falling so far (sure, it hurt and he’s pretty sure he’d ache a whole lot more if it wasn’t so cold, but it’s nothing to worry about).
Over the sound of water splashing at Peter’s poor treading technique, he can’t make out whatever Ock says next. At least the man seems to have decided to take the ‘victory’ for what it is, and has now just wandered off to… go to bed, or whatever it is villains do in their free time.
Without the option to web himself up to the bridge, Peter slowly wades his way back to shore. He had stopped carrying his mechanical web-shooters with him once he got used to the organic ones, so unfortunately it was the slow way out for him.
Peter drags himself up the breakwater and collapses onto the footpath. His spider-sense doesn’t ping anything, making Peter glad for the first time that it’s probably about 2am, and letting him yank off the suffocating mask to finally breathe clearly, even if just for a little while.
The frigid air circulates throughout Peter’s lungs, spreading the cold internally. His suit is drenched, but it’s also the only protection he has from the elements.
Peter pulls his gloves off, his hands shockingly pale and wrinkled from the cold and wet—it hasn’t even been that long. He huffs into his hands, trying to warm up, but his breath does little to help.
How far is it to his apartment… Peter shivers at the thought of swinging all the way there. He’s not sure if he’ll even be able to put one leg in front of the other, let alone web-swing. But what other options does he have?
Peter tries to stand, but it’s hard to stand straight when he can’t feel the ground. He’s left swaying side to side as he walks with a gait hardly more coordinated than a newborn deer’s.
“Come on, Spider-man,” Peter encourages himself, slipping the mask back on. He walks.
And walks.
It’s all in a haze, really. He’s not entirely sure where he’s going, but his spider-sense is telling him it’s the right direction, and all he can do is trust it. At some point during the fight E.V. had gone offline—there’s no backup, just Peter and wherever his spider-sense is taking him.
Even after walking for what feels like hours (but probably wasn’t), his suit still feels soaked, the fabric not letting out any of the water.
Eventually, Peter reaches a building and his instinct tells him this is the one. He thinks… it’s tall enough to consider web-slinging. He stares up at a well-positioned corner, perfect to start slinging from. It must be… an apartment complex. Maybe.
He lifts an arm, the simple action taking far too much effort. His fingers hardly cooperate as he attempts to flex them and aim his wrist at the top of the building. He tenses the muscles in his forearm and feels the now familiar strain as his body tries to produce webbing, but all that comes of the effort is an ache.
Peter continues staring at where he wishes the web would land, as if the thought of it might manifest something different.
Nothing.
There’s no one around to help him, here. The street, while still populated, has no one that cares for a random Spider-man ‘cosplayer.’ The people walk with purpose, aiming only to get away from the cold weather, keeping their heads down so as to not face the wind.
A person shoulder-checks him, forcing him closer to the building, mumbling something about druggies as they glare and watch Peter stumble.
Peter tentatively places a hand against the wall. Even through the numbness, he can feel the cold seep into his fingertips. Reluctantly, he puts a second hand against the wall, a bit higher, only slipping a little from the water saturated into his suit.
Then a foot.
Then another.
Slowly, he scales the wall, his only goal to reach the top. Once he gets there, he can figure out what comes next.
So long as he doesn’t fall.
A person shouts from down below, but it doesn’t bother him.
Peter can hardly bring himself to keep his eyes open, all his energy used to fuel the climb, his shivering—
—
—hands fumble with the keys, trying to find the right one, the cold numbing Ned’s fingers into clumsiness and tiredness taking away any residual strength. Ned grumbles as he can’t turn the lock just right to make the door unlock. It is freezing outside. And in too, actually—the concrete staircase let the cold seep into the apartment complex like it was invited inside with open arms. Ned would rather it be banned.
Finally, the door clicks open. Ned wishes he could have walked into the bliss of a heated apartment, but MJ cracked down on him wasting power while no one was home, so that wasn’t what happened. Instead, he walked into the only-marginally-warmer-than-the-hallway apartment and sighed. At least it’s marginally better?
Ned dumps his bags down on the bench, ignoring how the tap sounds to be dripping and immediately strides to the living room where the thermostat lives. He deserves a little bit of heating on such a cold night, right?
He yawns as he sets the temperature to comfortably boil him alive, thank you.
He looks to the roof for the nearest vent, hoping to heat his hands and—
A sopping wet Spider-man is hanging upside down near a cluster of disorganised webs in the corner of the living room. The position is distinctly spider-like, except for his arms wrapped tightly around his torso, presumably to try to warm up.
“Peter?” Ned asks tentatively, stepping closer.
A small puddle sits beneath where Peter’s body is suspended. His body occasionally tenses, like it’s trying to shiver but has forgotten how. The mask hides what exactly Peter’s expression is, but his head tracks him with a terrifying intensity, the whites of his eyes slit with either distrust or disorientation.
Ned grabs one of Peter’s gloved hands and it’s ice cold and shaking. He gives it a squeeze.
“Peter?” he asks again.
Peter’s head tilts to the side. He slowly lowers himself from the web. Then, much to Ned’s surprise, he gives Ned a very big (and wet) hug. Like, legs wrapped around Ned’s waist and everything.
Ned laughs awkwardly, “It’s good to see you too dude…”
Peter doesn’t respond, instead just continuing to hold tight, tucking his head into Ned’s neck. The ridges of his mask and harder edges of the lenses uncomfortably dig into Ned’s skin.
Okay… okay.
“Are you okay?”
Ned thinks he hears Peter say ‘cold,’ but he’s not entirely sure. It would make sense, though.
Ned takes a seat on the lounge before trying to pry Peter’s hands off of his back. They absolutely will not budge. Well, they budge about as much as his shirt moves, but anymore and Ned wouldn’t be shocked if his shirt would get torn before Peter ever let go. Peter’s hands are positively freezing.
“Um. Am I supposed to be doing something?
Peter simply shivers in Ned’s arms. If that’s as much of an answer as Ned’s going to get, then he’ll take it, he guesses.
Like this, even Ned is getting cold, the water seeping from Peter’s suit into Ned’s clothes too. Ned leans over from where they’ve sat, reaching for the blanket hung over the other side.
Peter does what one might refer to as a growl at the movement, but Ned manages to just grab the edge of the blanket, pulling the rest with him as he leans back to settle Peter. Ned struggles though eventually manages to wrangle the blanket over the two of them.
“We can… just lay here then…?” Ned says slowly.
Peter stops shivering for the moment, so that’ll have to do.