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There was never an option to run away from the flames.
When the options came down to save himself or save everyone in the building, there was no choice. He would always look out for the little guy, even if it meant diving headfirst into fire.
Which is exactly what he did.
The call came in at 11:46 pm. Peter had just said goodnight to May after a night patrolling the streets. It’d been quiet for hours; why did the fire have to start right after his normal shift ended? He has a test tomorrow, he needs sleep!
But as soon as his phone alarm went off that there was a multi-story apartment complex already half-engulfed, he didn’t hesitate to jump out of bed, throw on the suit, and dive out of his window. He’d taken a look at the address before he left, but it was unneeded. He could see the cloudy sky glowing from only three blocks away.
It took Peter less than a minute to swing over to a neighboring rooftop to assess the damage. Floors two through five had flames leaping out of the windows. Floors six to eight didn’t appear to be on fire…yet. With the smoke, sparks, and heat rising, it wouldn’t take long.
People flooded the street below and more ran from the building. They all watched the fire with stunned horror. Screams and cries competed with the roaring flames for what was loudest. If the building was full, there were far too few people on the street. There must be many stuck inside.
“Karen,” Peter told his suit AI, “activate reconnaissance mode.”
It was the first time since the alien tech incident where he used reconnaissance mode. He didn’t like the thought of spying on people through walls, and being able to hear them from a distance where he could barely even see their faces. But in this case, he knew immediately that he’d need it to find everyone still trapped inside the building.
Following his command, he was able to see into the top floors. It was jumbled from the intense heat of the fire; he could barely pick out the shapes of people huddled together in their apartments or running for the windows. The sixth floor was the worst, since it was already starting to light up from the fire underneath.
Enough time wasted. Peter leaped off the building and swung directly through the open window of an abandoned apartment. He landed in a roll and jumped up without losing momentum. His suit’s vision and enhanced hearing told him that there was a family two doors down, crouched in the farthest room away from the fire.
Peter burst into the hallway and momentarily froze. It was pitch-dark and filled with thick black smoke. If it wasn’t for his mask, he knew he’d already be choking on the poisonous gases.
But he had a mask, and the trapped families didn’t. He had to move.
The hero ran towards the nearest people and had to rely on his suit’s vision to navigate. He almost crashed into the wall blocking them from the main room. But he didn’t hesitate to throw open the door and beckon for the family. “This way! I’ll get you out!”
They immediately ran towards him. He found the outside window and lifted it so fast the frame almost cracked. “One at a time but quickly!”
The mother pushed their child towards him. Peter immediately looped his arm around their torso and swung out of the building. He landed safely on the street and briefly thought about getting someone to watch over the kid while he went back. But he decided not to—it’d take too much time to explain. So he jumped back into the building and carried the mother out to safety. Then the father.
Then he went back for more.
By the time he’d cleared the floor, flames threatened to overtake the walls and into the next floor up. He was racing against the fire, and it was winning.
But he wasn’t about to give up. Peter swung outside, then into the next apartment with people trapped.
Flames threatened to burn his suit by the time he’d finished floor seven, but thanks to the material, it didn’t ignite. That didn’t stop the heat from reaching him, though, and the smoke found its way into his mask. He was panting from heat and coughing from smoke by the time he finished the floor. Debris started to rain down as the building lost its structural integrity.
There was only one left, number eight. He could do this. The fire department had arrived and was tackling the lowest floors. He just had to get the last people out, then he could step back.
His body screamed for rest as he climbed up the brick building to the next occupied apartment. This one only had two people, and they were already at the window. Peter wasn’t paying attention to who they were; it didn’t matter, only their safety did. He grabbed the nearest person and swung them to safety. When he returned and offered his hand to the second person, he froze.
It was MJ.
She obviously didn’t recognize him with the suit, and she was coughing just as much as he. Her face was covered in soot. Peter hadn’t even known she lived here.
He snapped out of his initial shock and beckoned for MJ. She readily accepted his help getting down, though she did shriek in alarm when they swung down to the street. Peter released her and they both bent over, coughing.
He forced aside his burning lungs and aching body and went back for more people. He wasn’t about to give up now that he was almost done, even if the danger had increased. Rising steam mixed with smoke as the fire on the lower floors was slowly snuffed out. The combination was almost worse than breathing only smoke.
Peter stumbled through the halls, no longer able to run, and attempted to follow his suit’s thermal guidance. But with fire licking the walls, the heat blocked out any signs of people.
“Is anyone there?!” Peter shouted, then broke off coughing. He stumbled into a wall but immediately recoiled when his shoulder burst into fiery pain. Right. Because the walls were on fire.
“Anyone!” Peter weakly kicked open the nearest door but didn’t see anyone inside. But then he heard a faint cry for help, thanks to his suit’s enhanced hearing.
He stumbled towards the sound. A chunk of ceiling crashed to the floor right in front of him, throwing sparks into the air. Peter stumbled back with a gasp and patted out the sparks that landed on him.
With the pressing threat of collapse, he ran faster—or at least as fast as he could. His suit blared warnings that he ignored.
Finally he reached the occupied apartment. It was a family of five—two parents and three kids. They’d huddled together under the sink with wet towels pressed over their faces, but it was only doing so much.
“Come this way!” Peter called, unlocking and raising the window. Heat from the fire below buffeted into his face. He looked back and reached towards the nearest kid, who readily took his hand and wrapped their little arms around him. Peter swung them down to the street and handed them off to a nearby paramedic.
He stumbled slightly as he ran back.
By the time he finished saving the family, the whole floor and ceiling were engulfed with flames. From the street, Peter stared in horror at the upper floor. There was no way that it’d been mostly empty. There must still be people inside. People who needed his help. Who—
“Spider-man!” He whirled towards the sound of his name. A firefighter ran over, holding a clipboard. “We have a list of everyone who lives inside. Everyone’s out here—” he relaxed for a half-second “—except for one person on Floor Eight! His name’s Brian Myers!”
Peter tensed and his gaze snapped back up.
“What number?” He demanded. His voice came out terribly scratchy and hoarse.
The firefighter gave him an alarmed look. “832.”
“Thanks,” Peter replied, and before anyone could try to talk him out of it, he used the nearest building to return to the top floor.
The apartment he needed was on the other side of the building. Peter ran across the roof, occasionally jumping over sections that tried to collapse under him, and crawled on the outside of the building until he reached the right room.
The masked hero let himself in and shouted, “Brian, I’m here! Where are you?!”
When he didn’t get a reply, he started searching. He went to the bathroom first; no one. Then the bedrooms. Then the kitchen. He didn’t find anyone.
The building creaked and groaned. Peter ignored the warning signs and threw open the door to the hall. Bright orange flames greeted him, then rushed inside the apartment.
“No!” He slammed the door shut, but it was too late. The fire advanced quickly. Peter anxiously threw himself into a better search—under the bed that no one could fit under, behind the open shower curtain, inside tiny cabinets—everything. He was not going to leave when someone could be trapped here.
But then—
The groaning that came from the building losing strength loudened into cracking and crashing. It was the only warning Peter had before the floor suddenly vanished and he fell.
Crying out in surprise, Peter shot a web skyward, intending for it to land on the ceiling and pull him to safety. But more debris landed on the web and snapped it into two singed halves.
He slammed into the next floor and something struck his head.
Fire. Everywhere. Burning.
It was so, so, so hot.
He couldn’t breathe.
The floor collapsed again and he fell to the next one down. Bricks and concrete landed around and on top of him. The only thing he could think to do was curl up small and wrap his arms around his pounding head. It didn’t stop flames from eating at his suit or smoke from flooding into his lungs. His mask had slipped up a little and exposed his mouth and nose. Unprotected, he had no protection against the toxic smoke.
No, no, nonono—
Peter fumbled to pull his mask on but his weakened fingers slipped off the fabric. His body tensed as he coughed, desperate for oxygen but each breath only making things worse. The building roared as it continued to collapse.
Peter felt the floor crack again. He couldn’t do anything to stop himself from falling as it gave out, taking him with it—
—until something hard snagged his wrist and pulled him up.
Then he was flying through the cold night air and away from the fire.
Then he was on his side, mask fully gone, hacking up a lung as fresh oxygen flooded into his body.
A blurry figure crouched next to him, one hand on his back, talking urgently. Something glowed faintly from behind them. It took Peter several minutes to recognize the silhouette of Iron Man’s suit, and the face next to his, telling him to breathe.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter rasped weakly as his coughing finally lessened. His throat felt scraped raw and his whole body ached. “I—I tried, sir, I didn’t give up, but—”
“Breathe, kid,” the billionaire instructed, gently rubbing his back for comfort in a rare moment of affection. “I know. You did good.”
Peter let his head fall onto the roof of the building Tony had flown him to. He could see smoke four houses down, and where there used to be an apartment complex, the space was empty.
He’d left that apartment. There was still someone inside. He hadn’t saved them.
He quickly realized that he was too weak and in too much pain to cry. Or maybe the fire had dried up his tear ducts.
Tony reached to his side and came back with white gauze. He pressed it to Peter’s head, and only when the pain shot through him did he remember he’d been struck by the falling building. He flinched away but Tony followed and pressed down harder.
“Ow,” Peter whimpered. He bit his lip and let Tony wrap the gauze in place with bandages. “How did you find me?”
He must’ve sounded worse than he thought, because Tony sent him an alarmed look. “I told you, Underoos, I put everything in your suit. Including monitors to tell me when your vital signs were bad.”
“But…you’re upstate.” A sudden cough tore through him and he curled into himself with a weak groan.
He felt Tony’s eyes on him. “Which is why I didn’t get here sooner.”
Well then. His suit must’ve warned Tony a while ago when he was still rescuing people. Which meant he had probably been in rough shape for longer than what was healthy. But he’d come at the perfect time, for which Peter was beyond grateful.
A brief silence fell. Peter felt guilt crawling its way up his aching throat until it escaped in a faint whine. Tony immediately leaned closer. “Where else are you hurt?”
Everywhere, he thought distantly, but didn’t answer aloud. “There was still someone there,” he rasped. His eyes stung and he swallowed harshly. “I didn’t…I couldn’t…”
Tony straightened. “What’s their name?”
It took Peter a few seconds to remember what the firefighter had told him. “Brian Myers,” he replied quietly.
“F.R.I.D.A.Y., do a search for Brian Myers.” Tony went silent as he listened to his assistant. Then he frowned. “Brian Myers left from JFK airport two days ago,” he informed Peter.
The teen froze, staring wide-eyed at Tony. “W-what?”
He smiled and placed a firm but comforting hand on an uninjured part of Peter’s arm. “He wasn’t in there. You got everyone.”
Peter saved everyone.
He gasped and covered his mouth with his hand. Then, finally, tears—of relief this time—pooled in his eyes. “I got everyone,” he echoed. Adrenaline quickly drained out of his body, only to be replaced by pain. “Ow.”
Tony smiled grimly. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No, no, please—” Peter struggled to sit upright but only managed to prop himself up on his elbows. Fearful eyes met Tony’s somewhat-impatient ones. “I-I can’t go in like this.”
“Have you seen yourself?” Tony deadpanned, gesturing to Peter’s body.
He automatically looked down and immediately paled. His suit was half-destroyed, revealing burns of varying sizes. His arms were riddled with small cuts, presumably from when the building collapsed on him. He admittedly hadn’t realized how bad it was.
There was no way that May wouldn’t take him to the hospital if Tony didn’t.
“I brought you a change of clothes,” Tony added, sounding somewhat embarrassed. Peter raised a brow but the billionaire didn’t meet his gaze. “This isn’t a choice, kid.”
Peter relented. Tony gave him space while he struggled to remove the burned suit and slip on the loose-fitting clothes Tony had packed in the small bag he’d brought, the same one with the bandages he’d used. Peter wasn’t able to stay on his feet for long but almost protested Tony flying him to the nearest hospital.
Several of the nurses and other patients—some from the fire—stared at the duo as they entered. Tony ignored them, but Peter found that difficult. He ducked his head and kept his gaze on the floor as Tony sorted out the details for him.
Once again, Peter was extremely grateful towards him.
Tony didn’t stay much longer. He made sure Peter was checked in and paid for, in his own room, then disappeared. Peter told the nurses that he’d left because of an “Avengers thing.” When they asked how he was burned, he said it was from escaping his apartment in the fire. It was an easy half-truth. He reserved the full story only for May, who knew of his hero-ing.
He was released the next day and healed within three. Some of the kids—namely Flash—at school tried to make fun of him for the injuries, but he ignored them. Only MJ gave him suspicious looks.
Later, she’d use it as a reason why she thought Peter was Spider-man.