[Are you enjoying the story? If so, and you'd like to give me a little extra motivation to keep writing or get access to upcoming chapters before everyone else, stop by my Patreon.]
LINK: patreon.com/Rudeus690
***
Sitting on the edge of a building, his legs dangling over the street below, Peter brought a plastic water bottle to his mouth, his mask lifted up past his nose, leaving his chin and lips exposed to the cold night air.
He tilted his head back, feeling the water go down his throat, and closed his eyes for a second, enjoying the relief the water gave him.
It was nighttime, the last few hours since saying goodbye to Gwen had been an uninterrupted sequence of work. Peter took down several criminals, saved countless people, and had to run from the police twice. The first time, it was just a patrol car that saw him swinging between buildings and tried to chase him.
The second time, however, things were much worse. There was a helicopter involved and everything, from a spotlight sweeping across the buildings to orders being shouted through megaphones. Peter was forced to stay hidden behind a water tank for almost ten minutes, waiting for the sound of the blades to fade into the distance.
Just another day as Spider-Man. Nothing out of the ordinary for him.
BANG!
'Break time's over,' Peter thought, pulling his mask down and screwing the cap onto the empty bottle with a quick movement of his fingers. He got to his feet and leaned forward, letting himself fall off the building.
The wind howled in his ears as he plummeted in free fall, the red and blue suit vibrating against his skin, the lights of the buildings blurring past him in colorful streaks. The ground approached fast, but Peter didn't shoot a web immediately. He waited until he was just a few meters from the asphalt before firing the web.
THWIP!
And with his other arm, he aimed at the trash can near the sidewalk — an old can, made of rusted metal, with a black plastic bag overflowing over the lid — and threw the empty bottle. It spun in the air, the plastic shining under the streetlight, and fell inside the can.
'Score!' Peter thought, a quick smile forming on his lips beneath the mask. But his expression soon faded as he spotted, ahead, what seemed to be a fight between two armed men. 'Ah man...'
***
Peter swung between the buildings using only his left arm to shoot and pull web-lines, his body tracing perfect arcs over the illuminated streets of New York. His other arm was busy pressing his phone against his ear.
He was in the middle of a call with May. The wind forced him to raise his voice a little higher than usual so she could hear him over the noise of traffic and the whistling air. "Go enjoy your night, May. You don't need to keep worrying about me."
[But Anna made that pie you like.] May's voice came through the speaker a bit distorted, muffled by the wind, but Peter could hear it very clearly, along with the hope in her voice.
"I'm just getting to the subway, so it's still going to take me a while to get there." Peter said, not wanting to take part in the slightest in the "girls night" May was going to have at Mary Jane's aunt's house. "I'll end up delaying dinner. And I don't want to be the reason the food gets cold."
[Please, Peter, they won't mind waiting a little.] May insisted, [You know how Anna is. She'll love having you there. And MJ too.]
"May, I..." he began, trying to find a delicate way to say no, but a movement in the corner of his eye made the words die in his throat.
It had been quick; however, Peter could swear he saw a man lying on the ground with another man standing over him as he passed by a narrow alley, the kind that cut through the blocks between two busy avenues—poorly lit, with dumpsters stacked and black bags piled along the sides.
"May, I'm going to have to hang up," he said, promptly changing direction mid-air and swung back toward the alley.
[Peter, wai—]
He hung up.
Peter didn't see her face—he didn't need to. He knew May would be worried that he had hung up so abruptly. She was probably staring at the phone with that expression he knew well, frowning, tilting her head, wondering what had happened before slipping the device into her pocket and letting out a heavy sigh.
But he didn't have time to worry about that right now.
Later, he would find a way to make it up to her.
When he arrived at the alley, Peter confirmed, to his dismay, that he had seen correctly.
There was a man lying on the ground, legs stretched out, arms motionless at his sides. Around him, several grocery bags were scattered, their contents spilled onto the dirty ground— fruits, vegetables, meat, and many other things.
The other man — the one who was over him and whom Peter presumed to be a thief — wore a black coat with the hood over his head and ran desperately deeper into the alley.
Peter landed beside the fallen man, his feet hitting the ground with enough force to make his knees bend slightly to absorb the impact. His right hand was already extended, his wrist pointed in the direction of the thief who was already almost leaving the alley, his hooded silhouette about to disappear around the corner.
Peter aimed and fired.
THUP!
But what came out of his shooter was not a web line, but a tiny black device. It flew in a straight line, crossing the distance between them in less than a second, and latched onto the thief's back at the exact moment he turned the corner and disappeared into the street.
Peter then turned to the fallen man, but as soon as his eyes found him, he froze.
Blood.
A lot of blood.
So much blood that Peter wondered how he hadn't seen it while he was in the air.
Dropping to his knees, he quickly searched for the source of the bleeding and found a wound on the side of the man's neck, right in the carotid artery. 'Ah, shit. This is bad.' Desperate, Peter quickly fired webs at the area, trying to stop the bleeding as fast as he could. "Y-you're going to be okay. I'm going to take you to the hospital, we just need to stop—"
Peter froze a second time. This time, after looking at the man's face and seeing that his eyes were glassy, the pupils dilated and fixed on some distant point in the night sky, unblinking. But more importantly, Peter knew that face.
The sunken cheeks, deep dark circles, thinning hair, the worn gray suit. It was Bob. The same man Peter had helped this morning. The same man who had been sitting on the floor, eating pancakes from his aunt, thanking him with tears in his eyes. The same man who went without eating so he could feed his eight-year-old daughter, who had gone into debt because of his wife with cancer, who was going to a job interview.
Now that same man was there, lying on that filthy ground, his suit soaked in blood.
"No, no, no, no," Peter whispered, pressing his hand against Bob's chest. Nothing. No heartbeat.
From that point on, Peter spent several minutes trying to revive him.
"Come on, Bob," He said between compressions, his arms straight, his hands overlapped at the center of the man's chest, which rocked with each push. One, two, three, four times. "Your daughter is waiting for you. Your wife is waiting for you. They need you. You can't give up now."
Five, six, seven, eight times. "Do you remember me, Bob? I'm that kid who helped you earlier. The pancake kid. Let me help you one more time, please."
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve times. Bob's body did not respond, his eyelids remaining open, his eyes glassy.
"React, Bob. You can't leave them alone."
Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four times.
"React!"
Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven times.
"React!"
One hundred fifty, one hundred fifty-one, one hundred fifty-two times.
"Please, react. Please..."
It was all in vain.
Bob had died before Peter even entered the alley.
***
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.