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Bringing his hand to his right wrist, Peter pressed the small button embedded on the side of a discreet silver bracelet. This was the new model of his web-shooters — so compact they looked more like a simple fashion accessory than crime-fighting equipment, no longer protruding like bulky mechanisms.
That was precisely the plan: to make the web-shooters so discreet that he could wear them at all times, without having to remove them to protect his secret identity. After all, who would suspect a simple bracelet?
But discretion wasn't the only change Peter had made. He had also optimized the web cartridges, which now held nearly twice the capacity of the previous ones. Running out of webbing in the middle of a fight? Not anymore! At least, that was the hope...
On top of that, he had added a few new features. Small upgrades his now efficiency-obsessed mind couldn't resist adding.
Like the one he was about to test now.
THWIP! THWIP! THWIP!
Three strands of webbing cut through the air in fractions of a second, each finding its target with the precision of someone who had done this thousands of times. The big guy was hit in the shoulder, the nervous one took it to the chest, and the leader was struck in the hand that was trying to reach for something in his pocket.
And then, at the exact moment the webs touched their targets—
BZZZT!
BZZZT!
BZZZT!
An electric charge shot from the webs into their targets, hitting all three thieves simultaneously. The entire store seemed to vibrate with the sharp buzz of electricity as the criminals' bodies trembled in an involuntary choreography, eyes wide and hair standing on end for a brief instant before—
Nothing.
The electric surge passed, and all three were still standing.
Peter blinked beneath the mask.
The big guy, who had taken the shock straight to the shoulder, shook his head like someone waking from a nap. The nervous one looked at his own chest, then at Spider-Man, then at his chest again, wearing an expression of complete confusion. The leader simply dropped the object he had been trying to grab — a cellphone, apparently — and stared at his own hand, where small residual sparks still crackled before fading out.
An awkward silence settled over the store.
"...Okay." Peter muttered to himself, his voice muffled by the mask. "That was... anticlimactic."
The big guy was the first to regain his composure. Maybe because his body fat acted as insulation, interfering with the distribution of electricity, something that would have to be taken into account. He charged toward Peter, seemingly under the illusion that it would be a good idea to try and take on Spider-Man with nothing but his fists.
Needless to say, Peter dealt with him quickly, taking him down with a spinning leg sweep before finishing with a punch to the face that sent him straight to dreamland.
"GET HIM!" the leader shouted to the nervous thug, who hesitated before pulling a knife from his waistband and running toward Peter, having learned nothing from what had happened to his partner.
Peter grabbed the wrist holding the knife with ease and squeezed until the thug dropped the weapon with a pained groan. "Thinking isn't really your thing, is it?" the hero commented, knocking the thug down with a punch to the face.
"Now, that just leaves..." Peter turned to where the leader had been seconds earlier. "...you." The space was empty. His eyes swept across the store in an instant and found the back door wide open, swaying slightly. The last thug had fled. "Oh, one of you is a little smart." Shooting a web at the ceiling, he pulled himself toward the back door in a single motion, vaulting over several counters.
But the moment he stepped outside...
!!!
His spider-sense screamed inside his skull.
Peter didn't have time to think. His body simply moved on its own, driven by a reflex that had saved his life countless times. He leapt upward in an acrobatic motion, his body twisting through the air as—
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
A hail of gunfire tore toward him.
Bullets whizzed around him, passing so close that Peter felt the air displacement against his skin. One ricocheted off the brick wall to his left, shattering fragments that scraped across his mask. Another skimmed past his leg, close enough to tear his suit. A third pierced the air where his head had been a microsecond earlier.
They didn't stop.
Peter was forced to spin in midair, a human top dodging bullets as his brain processed the scene in slow motion: three men stationed at the back of a dark van, rifles raised. The gray-haired leader hovered by the open rear doors, half inside the vehicle.
'Hmm, so they're not just simple thieves,' Peter thought as his feet touched the ground for a second—long enough to propel himself again, throwing himself sideways into a roll as more bullets spat fire in his direction. The concrete behind him shattered into clouds of dust, each impact sounding like a hammer striking the pavement.
Peter didn't stop. He couldn't stop. His body became a blur of red and blue in the dark alley, moving in unpredictable patterns, leaping, twisting, evading—always one step ahead of the bullets, always an inch outside death's reach.
And then, at the peak of a jump, suspended in the air for an instant, Peter found the right moment.
Time slowed.
Down below, the three men with rifles kept firing, the barrels of their rifles flashing as they fired toward him. Peter could see the bullets rising—not literally, not with his eyes, but with something deeper: the heightened awareness his spider-sense granted him in moments of danger. Because of it, he knew every trajectory the bullets would take, and he also knew that none of them would hit him.
Peter extended his arms.
THWIP!
THWIP!
THWIP!
Three webs shot from the launchers on his wrists, each traveling in a straight line and striking the men's faces simultaneously.
The gunfire stopped, replaced by muffled screams as the shooters desperately tried to rip the sticky mass from their eyes, noses, and mouths. But before any of them had the chance to do so, Peter was already in front of them, moving like a ghost.
The first took a blow to the solar plexus that folded him like a sheet of paper, the air escaping his lungs in an audible whoosh. The second was struck at the temple, his eyes rolling back before he crumpled to the ground. The third, who had managed to free one eye, tried to fire again, but Peter was already expecting it — a precise kick disarmed him, followed by a right cross that knocked him out cold.
But Peter had no time to rest.
Because the van's driver, seeing in the rearview mirror his partners being taken down in the blink of an eye, made the only decision that made sense: run. He slammed the accelerator, making the engine roar and the tires screech before the van shot forward.
"No, you don't!" Determined to end it quickly, Peter fired a web at the back of the van, the strand sticking to the metal with a sharp thwip. He bent his knees, bracing for the impact.
The web stretched.
Peter's arm was yanked forward with it.
And then the brute force of the fleeing vehicle hit, dragging the hero a few inches, his feet scraping across the asphalt before he managed to dig in. Peter's muscles hardened with effort, the fibers contracting beyond human limits as he threw all his body weight backward, his torso nearly parallel to the ground.
The van lurched to a halt, its tires skidding on the asphalt, creating thick clouds of smoke, the smell of burnt rubber filling the air.
The vehicle was fighting against Peter. And he was winning.
"Come on. This is a great time for the engine to blow—"
CRASH!
For a moment, Peter actually believed his request had been granted. But it hadn't. The sound had come from the back of the van, metallic and violent.
One of the rear doors — exactly where the web was attached — simply came loose.
The metal was torn from its hinges by the force of the pull, flying backward like a spinning disc, cutting through the air toward Peter with lethal speed. The hero reacted by releasing the web and dropping to the ground in a swift motion, feeling the rush of wind from the door passing inches above his body before it crashed into the alley wall with a thunderous bang.
And the van, free of any resistance, sped away.
Peter remained still for a moment, lying on the asphalt, staring at the night sky as he processed what had just happened. "Tsk. It always ends in a chase."
His arms rose, hands pointing toward the adjacent buildings of the alley.
THWIP! THWIP!
Two webs flew, attaching to the ledges. He tensed his arms, felt the familiar vibration of the strands stretching, and pulled himself upward with force, launching himself into the air in a powerful surge.
He quickly adjusted midair and fired another web, his eyes locked on the van ahead. "I've got twenty minutes to finish this."
***
Disclaimer: This story and its characters belong to Sony Pictures and Marvel Comics (Disney). This is merely a fanfiction written by a fan, with no intention of infringement.