Chapter Text
Alright, so.
In the situation of getting caught by your teammates, sort of, kind of making out with your best friend in the middle of something that, in his defense, he hadn’t known was a city-wide emergency: what is the correct course of action?
Because Peter would place every cent of his student debt on throwing said friend to the other side of the couch being the wrong one.
Ned was displeased.
Ned had a right to be displeased because Peter was the one who initiated this bad fucking idea after they’d both very clearly admitted that it was a bad fucking idea because Peter was a goddamn moron who’d said, “Okay, but like, maybe let’s just see. No one else has to know, right?”
Ahahahahaha.
Ahahaha.
Ah, he wanted to die.
And he couldn’t even ask Wade to end him because he was standing there, doorknob in hand, standing in dead silence. And stillness.
“I can explain?” Peter’s mouth tried.
Little Spidey had both hands slapped over her face and Louis, like Wade had frozen in terror. Wade, ever the most mature of their team, woke up out of his daze first and his reaction was to close the door.
Peter and Ned sat in resulting privacy and silence for a minute, before Peter’s brain reminded him that he had two degrees and that maybe, if he started apologizing now and never stopped for the rest of his short, miserable existence, Ned would forgive him.
“I’m so fu—”
“Literally shut up,” Ned countered.
“Okay, let me just get one in because—”
“Peter.”
“I’m—”
“Ah.”
“Sor—”
“AH. Nope. People are dying. Go do the thing.”
All hope was lost. Fuck it, go big or go home.
“I’ve repressed all my feelings for you since we were eighteen and I cry for hours sometimes because you always love me even when I can’t and I’ve never gotten over the time we messed around when we were sixteen it’s one of my top ten sex fantasies and sometimes I THINK OF BOTH YOU AND MJ WHEN I’M DOING IT OKAY BYE.”
Because the correct course of action was always jumping out the window in a red spandex suit.
It worked every time.
“Dude,” Little Spidey whispered in awe when he caught up with them.
He could not look at her. He could look at no human ever again. He was gonna to have to go north and become a hermit in Vermont. Karen still had friends in Vermont, right? She could hook him up.
“I mean, that was classic—”
“Angel, if you don’t shut your fucking face, I will throw myself off the goddamned Empire State. Wade, what’s happening?”
Wade said nothing, watching him with huge white eyes.
“Wade,” Peter shouted.
“Y’all are children,” he finally said, “Like. I’ve known y’all since you were babies. You cannot be doing the do, Petey-Pete. You can’t. You’re not old enough to. I don’t make the rules.”
God, just fucking—he crammed a hand up to his face and pinched as hard as he could at the bridge of his nose without breaking it.
“Okay, one? We are adults and have been for eight years, Wade. And two? I’ve ruined everything, so y’all can rest easy knowing that nothing will come of it. Now what’s happening?”
“It’s like someone’s tried to bomb Penn Station,” Miles, bless his fucking heart, chipped in. He was out of breath, must have hurtled this way from Brooklyn. “Everything is crazy, there’s something in the tunnels.”
Yeah, Parker. Focus on the tunnels.
He breathed in and breathed out.
Be Spiderman, Parker.
“Alright. These things, are they big?” he asked.
“Huge,” Miles threw back.
“Perfect, let’s go say hi,” Peter decided.
Huge was an understatement. Huge was a gross miscalculation. What Miles meant by ‘huge’ was ‘about the size of a subway car.’
They.
Were.
Spiders.
This was not a drill. Huge, many-eyed, many-legged spiders and Peter had always thought that that one scene in Harry Potter was fucking nightmare fuel, but that was nothing compared to the purgatory he was currently trapped in, wherein he was using every ounce of his super strength to wrangle a single hairy leg out of one of the North River tunnels while just barely containing his urge to wail like a child.
Penn Station cheered at his and his team’s arrival. Cheered. Because they made the obvious logic leap that Spiderman was the perfect man for this horrible job.
The spiders, the gargantuan tarantulas dead set on burrowing into the commuter rails, were less cheery. The one Peter was working on dragging out as the copycats tried to get as many people out of the station in as orderly a fashion as possible, made the Spidey Sense go absolutely apeshit. The hairs on the thing’s legs were like, feeling him up.
He looked behind him for a second to make sure that the deafening creaking he’d just heard wasn’t an oncoming train and looked back to find that a second leg was headed right his way.
Alright, listen. If he was going to die today, it was going to be on his motherfucking terms.
The Spidey Sense told him to strike, so he did. Dropped the leg, threw an elbow back and twisted his wrist into the motion.
His fist collided hard with the incoming leg and for a second, he thought that nothing had happened. Then the giant hairy leg spasmed and shook and the tunnel itself reverberated with a roar.
Where the fuck was Wade?
Fuck this, where the fuck were the Avengers?
“Karen, get me online,” he shouted over the noise. The noise was only getting louder. The tunnel got blacker and blacker as what little light inside was drowned out by the tarantula moving forward. More enormous, pillar-sized brown legs emerged out of the blackness.
Karen put him online.
Sorry, kids. Shit was about to get even louder.
“AVENGERS ASSEMBLE” he screamed into the comms at full volume, “ASSEMBLE AT NYC PENN STATION. THREAT LEVEL SEVEN GOING ON EIGHT. AIR SUPPORT VITAL, GROUND SUPPORT VITAL, CROWD CONTROL VITAL. BIO THREAT. ARACHNID. BLOCKING RAIL TRAFFIC.”
The blackness of the tunnel gave way to brown and orange and blindingly reflective eyes.
“Copy that, Spiderman,” Sam Wilson’s voice said in his ear. “We’re on our way. ETA 15.”
“Holy shit,” Peter heard Louis say over the comms. “This is Avengers level?”
“Y’all get everyone away from tunnels, subways, everything. Keep ‘em surface level for now. Get the cops to help you,” Peter ordered.
“UNDER,” Wade’s voice suddenly shouted in his ear.
“Under?” Peter snapped back immediately.
“THIS AIN’T TELEPHONE PRINCESS, UNDER AND THROUGH,” Wade’s command tone informed him. It was followed by a noise of disgust and cursing.
Under and through. Get under, strike through. Wade must have already taken one of the other ones out. Peter turned back to the beast. The hairs on its legs moved with it, like gargantuan hairs planted in human goose bumps.
Under and through. He needed it to move. He needed it to get out of the tunnel and over him.
Think, Spiderman. Think.
How do you scare a spider? How do you scare a spider? How do you scare a spider?
Glass jar. Human foot. Harsh wind. Loud noise.
Make it bigger. Spider was bigger.
An earthquake? A huge motherfucking shoe—
Oh, now there’s a thought.
He was so sorry Amtrak.
“MILES, HERE. NOW.” He shouted over the comms.
He just barely heard Miles’s cry of confusion and then affirmative as he bounced his shoulders and breathed in and out.
You got this, Parker. It’s just a spider. You’re a spider. It’s fine. This is nothing like space. Remember space? Yeah, that was horrible.
He threw himself up onto the platform and started running.
“Spidey, what the fuck are you doing?” Wade’s voice snapped in his ear. “I said—”
“I’m fucking trying here, Wade,” Peter snapped back, in full sprint.
The spider was a hell of a lot bigger the closer he got to it. The more it unfurled, the bigger it got. The Spidey Sense practically whited out his vision, he’d never felt it so strong before. He flung an arm back and prayed that May wasn’t watching tv and punched the wall underneath the legs on the right hand side.
C’mon. C’mon. C’mon.
He thought he heard something in all that cracking.
He started sprinting back from where he came. Further back. He heard the squeak of shoes skidding onto the platform. He didn’t need to look to the side to know it was Miles, he grabbed him as he passed and threw him into a sprint alongside him.
“Miles, we gotta put our backs into this one,” he puffed out as they ran back as far as they could before hitting the other tunnel.
“What?”
“We gotta break that wall.”
“WHAT?”
“Put all your strength behind it, kid, we only got one more shot.”
Miles’s shoes shrieked with his as they hit the end of the platform and pivoted back towards the spider.
“We gotta break the tunnel in,” Peter shouted, “It’ll scare it out and then up and then we can get under.”
Miles, thank God for this kid, managed to match Peter’s pace, despite being a whole head shorter.
“What happens then?” he asked.
5 seconds to impact.
“We fucking pray. On my mark, baby boy.”
He took back his arm and saw Miles do the same.
3.
2.
“NOW.”
The impact took Peter’s wrist with it.
The wall cracked.
The tunnel seemed to shudder.
The concrete screamed as it slid against itself.
Peter ripped the broken hand back and, snapped his head up at the spider. Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
He reached out with his other hand and grabbed a handful of Miles’s suit. They didn’t have time. That thing wasn’t moving fast enough. It hadn’t moved fast enough. It was still half in the tunnel like an idiot. It wasn’t as fast as a normal tarantula. Couldn’t pull its abdomen out.
They needed to scram or they were going to get crushed. Miles’s wrist must have broken too, he was shocked into silence. Peter couldn’t give him time to feel the full extent of the pain. He threw the kid forward again with him into a run and then threw out a line of webbing with his non-fucked up hand.
The noise of the spider falling was tremendous. Perhaps even greater than when it had screamed at him from the tunnel.
They needed to get up and fucking out. He snagged the broken hand’s elbow around Miles’s waist and pulled hard with the other arm, put a fuckload of bicep into it and thank, Jesus, they had lift off.
He bypassed the stairs, didn’t stick the landing at the top. Both he and Miles went rolling. He recovered first and grabbed the kid again. More web.
Rinse, wash, repeat, until you see daylight.
The building was going to collapse when the tunnel did.
The copycats had gotten everyone out.
Wherever Wade was, he’d have the sense to move. He’d be alright.
They cleared the entrance onto 8th Avenue.
Miles stumbled hard but got caught by the arms of the hundreds of strangers waiting outside. But Peter couldn’t fucking deal with that because there was suddenly a woman screaming somewhere in front of him. Screaming full volume over all the noise and he knew without thinking what that scream meant.
He pushed himself up and then shoved through the crowd to meet her halfway, his broken hand screeching in pain. The women crashed into his chest, breathless.
“WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE?” he shouted. He didn’t have time for politeness.
13 years old. Brown hair, pink hat.
He sprinted back to the entrance and nearly ate shit because the whole building was shaking with the tunnel’s demise and the shrieking of the dying tarantula.
“Karen, give me heat signatures,” he ordered as he ran.
Where are you where are you where are you gotcha.
Smart girl, find a doorway. Maybe in any other situation, honey. He grabbed the girl before she could make so much as a shriek and started gunning it back towards the entrance again. He got halfway across the room before the walls started cracking.
Shit.
Shit.
He only had one arm left. The girl was sobbing into his neck, terrified. She was making it out of there. Come hell or high water.
“Hold on,” he told her. Tucked her in. Threw the web.
And put his fucking back into it.
The phantom ring of vibranium echoed in his ear as he hit the asphalt. It was quickly replaced by honking and the distant screech of tires.
But he didn’t hit any cars. His shoulder was hot. A mess. Some serious road rash. He knew without looking that it would be as red as his suit.
His head felt like shit. His hand felt like shit.
The girl was. She was breathing. Crying. But breathing. Maybe a little banged up. She’d make it.
Where was mama? There was mama. Yeah, she’s good, mama. Breathing at least, no, take her.
He realized that he was surrounded by parked cars and legs and gasping. Shuddering. The ground shuddered. He shivered.
Then there were hands on him, big ones. Oh, he knew these. From work. Ha.
Mr. Stark was pissed. He was saying something, but Peter’s ears were ringing and his head was ringing and he knew he was exactly fifteen seconds from unconsciousness, so Mr. Stark could say all that he wanted.
He woke up at home on his couch to a four pairs of eyes over him.
He screamed.
They screamed.
Not even a little ice cream in the whole fucking house.
Everyone collected themselves and sat back on their heels to clutch at their respective hearts and Wade at his nipples.
“Y’all trying to kill me?” Peter barked, slinging an arm—fuck that hurt like a motherfucker—over his eyes.
When no one answered him, he peeked out. When no one responded to that, he and his broken-ass hand sat up. Wade gave him a filthy look, then stood up and stalked out of the whole room. He left the apartment. He closed the door behind him.
That wasn’t good.
“Hey,” he said softly in Wade’s direction. He turned to the kids. “What’s happened? Is everyone okay? Where are the spiders?”
None of the copycats were wearing their masks. Miles had a few bandages on his face. His lip was trembling.
Oh shit.
“No, no, no,” he pleaded, “Tell me someone got the—”
“Spidey, just shut up,” Little Spidey snapped.
He couldn’t. Not with Penn Station collapsing. The casualties alone. He thought everyone had gotten out. The building had been empty when he last remembered it. No heat signatures. Just the one girl. He’d gotten the girl. Had she been hurt? Had her head cracked on the way out ? Had—
Miles couldn’t take it anymore and threw himself on top of Peter’s chest and started full-body sobbing. He was just a little bigger than that girl. Fuck, Peter had put him in danger, he’d—
“Spidey, just stop thinking, okay?” Angel snarled at him. “You’re a fucking maniac, do you know that? A fucking maniac. You could have died going back like that. You and your goddamn martyr complex—YOU COULD HAVE DIED.”
“Angel, settle down,” Louis ordered. She snapped her lips closed. Her eyes were shining.
Oh, no. Oh, god.
Louis didn’t say anything. He reached over to pry Miles off Peter, but Peter caught his hand with the unbroken one. He could see now that Miles had a matching cast. He wrapped his arms around the kid and gave him a tug until he allowed himself to be pulled up onto the couch with Peter. Peter hugged him close and let him tuck his head into his collarbone, let him curl up next to him to cry. He rubbed a hand in circles on the part of the kid’s back he could reach.
Angel sniffed.
Peter closed his eyes, then held out an open, but limp palm to her.
She came, too. Reluctantly, then all at once. He pressed his jaw against the top of her head and looked straight at Louis.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He was always saying it. They were always hearing it. But he really, truly meant it this time. And there was nothing more to say.
“I’m sorry.”
Louis nodded and sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly. It made his back and shoulders rise.
“Louis, I’m sorry.”
“I know, man. You’re also crazy.”
Peter huffed. It was hard with all the combined weight on him. All the stress. All the tears, the relief.
He dropped his head back and stared up at the ceiling. He swallowed.
“I’ll be more careful,” he promised them all. Miles rubbed at his eyes and unintentionally at Peter’s ribs. Peter dropped the broken hand onto his head and pressed in a little bit.
“I promise.”
“Wade’s mad at you,” Little Spidey told him as Louis convinced Miles to go wash his face in the bathroom.
Peter sighed and, inch by inch, forced himself up. He wasn’t wearing shoes, or the suit for that matter. Someone must have changed him out of it, paramedics maybe. Either that, or Mr. Stark had taken it away for repairs. It was going to need them.
“Where are you going?” Little Spidey asked him. She stood and helped him to his feet, though. She brought him his shoes when he asked for them.
“Gonna go find Wade.”
“But he’s mad.”
“Yeah, and he’ll only get madder. Hey Miles, there’s a pack of peas in the freezer, put that on your face for a minute, bud. It’ll help with the swelling. Call your dad and tell him you’re safe and with friends for the minute, alright? Don’t know if you’re getting back to Brooklyn tonight, but you can stay here if you need to.”
He got an affirmative as he staggered out the door.
Passing out in the middle of the day was always a trip because it meant waking up when it was dark.
He found Wade at the meeting roof, the old one. The perch. It took him a long time because everything hurt.
Wade didn’t acknowledge him. He sat as close to the edge of the roof as possible. Peter didn’t have the balance to do that right now. He sat down on the opposite side of the crumbling concrete divider on the safe side of the ledge and leaned the top of his back against Wade’s.
It was familiar.
Comforting.
He’d done that a lot when he was upset as a kid, except he’d been the one sitting on the ledge and Wade had been the one sitting against the concrete.
“Wade, I’m sorry I’m stupid,” he said.
Wade’s back expanded and deflated evenly.
“I’d say I won’t do it again, but we both know I’d be lying.”
Inhale. Expand. Exhale. Deflate.
He remembered being Miles. Throwing himself on Matt’s bloody, broken chest and sobbing for everything he was worth. Begging Matt to stay home, not to die. Please don’t die, Double D. We thought you weren’t coming back. We thought you weren’t coming home.
“Peter, you become more like him every day,” Wade said to the city.
Inhale. Expand. Exhale. Deflate.
“I’m sorry, Wade.”
“One of these days, you ain’t coming back, baby boy. Just like he ain’t.”
Peter had called Miles ‘baby boy’ back there. It had been reflexive.
He forced himself to push off of Wade’s back and climbed over the divider on his knees. He pressed himself up against Wade’s side and dislodged his arm to wrap it around himself.
He pressed his face against Wade’s chest. Wade didn’t look at him. But he did pull the arm closer.
“I’ll do better.”
“Only got one life to live, Peter.”
“I’ll do better.”
“Hey, why do you hate yourself so much, l’il one?”
He swallowed hard and pressed in closer. Remembered feeling like Miles.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t cry, Pete. C’mere.”
Even after all these years, Wade could pull Peter into his lap, into his arms. Ten years and nothing mattered. Peter was still that kid crying because he thought he and May were going to have to leave Uncle Ben’s ghost. An apartment which no longer even smelled like him.
Wade rubbed wide circles in his back, like he had back then.
“You gotta love yourself, Peter. No one’s gonna do it for you. Well, at least not the way you need it most.”
He nodded.
“You can’t go throwing your life away like that, pal.”
He sniffed.
“There was a girl,” he managed to croak.
“I would have got her,” Wade said evenly. “I was right behind you. I saw her.”
There was no point in trying to justify it further. No point in saying ‘but the walls were crumbling,’ ‘but you didn’t know what her mom looked like,’ ‘but she was so scared.’
Wade would have got it. That was kind of his thing. Weighing the impossible and saying ‘nah, not today, I think.’
Wade sighed. Peter sighed with him.
“Promise me you’re not gonna do nothing stupid for at least a whole week?”
Peter laughed. Wiped his face. Nodded.
“You gotta set a better example for them kids, Pete, seriously. Between you, me, and Red, they can’t afford anything less.”
Nah, that was true.
“I really am sorry, Wade,” Peter sniffed. Wade sighed again and wrapped his arms around him tighter. He started swaying.
“I know, you fuckin’ brat. Just stop givin’ me fuckin’ heartburn.”
Peter laughed.