🕷
Like a movie Peter loved, he lowered himself down like Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible inside the vault, but instead of stealing classified information to save the world, he was just lowering himself down into a – what looked like an abandoned -- warehouse in Brooklyn.
Right off the bat, gadgets and gizzmoos of plenty were all around him in complete disarray – some light blues being shined though on various metal surfaces, screens and monitors all displayed all sorts of information, the most notable one being the one of blueprints of Avengers Tower and the Stark plane in which Toomes (vulture dude) was planning to steal from.
The giant winged suit sat on its platform in a corner of the large warehouse.
"Hey!" Spider-Man shouted out into the darkness when he spotted Toomes hunched over a work bench, the glow from the monitors illuminating his darkened face. "Surprised?"
Toomes barely glanced up when he said, "Oh, hey, Pete. I don't hear you come in."
"It's over!" announced Peter. "I've got you."
"You know, I gotta tell you, Pete, I really, really admire your grit." He ligted his head to send a mocking smile at Peter. "I see why Liz likes you -- I do. When you first came to the house, I wasn't sure. I thought, 'Really?' But I get it now."
Peter wanted to scoff. "How could you do this to her?"
"'To her'?" Toomes echoed. "I'm not doing anything to her, Peter. I'm doing this for her."
"Huh, yeah," Peter wasn't at all fazed with Liz's dad's argument; he wasn't discouraged in the slightest. He shot a web out into the light, sticking Toomes' hand to the metal workbench behind him.
Toomes sighed in irritation. "Peter," he started slowly, "you're young. You don't understand how the world works."
"Yeah, but I understand that selling weapons to criminals is wrong," argued Spider-Man.
"How do you think your buddy Stark paid for that tower? Or any of his little toys? Those people, Pete, those people up there -- the rich and the powerful -- they do whatever they want. Guys like us -- like you and me -- they don't care about us. We build their roads and we fight all their wars and everything, but they don't care about us. We have to pick up after 'em. We have to eat their table scraps. That's how it is. I know you know what I'm talking about, Peter."
Peter didn't want to say anything. He knew how tough the world can be – he's lived in it the past few years, and after Uncle Ben died, it got so much worse. He was just lucky to have met Mr. Stark when he did. "Why are you telling me this?" Peter asked.
"Because I want you to understand. And . . ." Toomes glanced up behind Peter's shoulder. "I needed a little time to get her airbourne."
The mechanical wings flew out of its stand, smashing through a concrete wall and beams, aiming at Spider-Man who had to nimbly dodge to not get caught. Taking a folding knife out of his pocket, Toomes sliced the webs on his hand.
The wings flew after Spider-Man, smashing into more concrete support beams, dust and chunks flying everywhere. He had to keep jumping from place to place, from column to column, but the wings kept up with him, following him from everyplace he would land. Shooting a web on the ceiling, he flipped over the wings, kicking to down and away from him.
"I'm sorry, Peter," Toomes said, bring back Spider-Man attention.
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "The thing hasn't even touched me."
"True." Toomes nodded his head. "Then again . . . wasn't really thing to." A he finished the words, the wings sliced through the last remaining columns, letting the concrete ceilings and beams collapse on top of Spider-Man, crushing him under all the rubble.
"Chief, they're powering up the engines," a walkie-talkie crackled throygh the destruction on the only piece left untouched by the concrete – the workbench.
"Okay," said Toomes.
"Come on, come on, come on."
"Yeah, yeah."
🕷
Tingles erupted from Gwen's spine, coving her arms in goosebumps. It was a sensation she knew quite well, and it was something that has saved her many times -- her spider sense. Her mind scrambled to figure out why she would be getting it in the high school gym during the homecoming. Everyone was there dancing the night away. MJ was lurking somewhere along the sidelines drinking punch; Charlie found a pretty brunette to dance all the song to – including the slow, romantic ones; Ned was getting some more snacks for himself and Gwen; and poor Liz was being consoled by her friend who dragged her out onto the dancefloor.
For the life of her, she couldn't think as to why she would be getting that sensation. Then she remembered the only person who was missing – Peter.
Sucking in a tight inhale, her eyes widened in realization.
She searched frantically for Ned, to tell him that she needed to leave, but he got roped into a conversation with MJ, and she couldn't risk Ned blowing her identity away. Although, coming to think about it, MJ probably already had her suspicions about Gwen, but she couldn't think of it now. Right now, she had to find Peter and make sure he was alright, because if her senses were right – which they always were and that was what worried her most – is that Peter might be in some serious trouble.
Sending a quick text to Ned to at least tell him where she was going, she left the gymnasium and into the school hallways.
She found the discarded blue tie of Peter's laying on the floor. Gwen quickly picked it up, opened her school locker where her bag sat, waiting to be used. She shimmied her dress off, her floor length gown coving the Spider-Woman suit that was covering her legs and tied at her waist. She dressed herself in the suit, over her bra, it shrinking to her form when she placed her cuffs on.
Shoving all her stuff in, she pulled the mask over her face and left the school in search of Peter. She had a general idea where he was but couldn't remember which building it was – only it was a warehouse in Brooklyn. And there was a lot of warehouses in Brooklyn.
Gwen couldn't live knowing that she had the chance this Peter but didn't take it. She wouldn't be able to survive. That thought alone made her swing faster down the streets.
🕷
"Oh, God," groaned Peter. Trapped under tons of concrete and metal, he started to panic, hastily throwing his mask down into the puddle of dirtied water in front of him. His chest was being crushed under all that weight, and it just so happened that two pieces of a beam has collapsed on him, pinning him down on the ground. "Okay, ready?"
He managed to maneuver his arms so that he could spread his hands out on either side of him to push himself off the ground.
The concrete on his back began to shift when he lifted up, but the weight was too much.
As a kid, he always wondered what it must've felt like for Percy Jackson to hold up the sky. Now he knew. And he wished he never wondered that.
When his arms give out under him, the concrete fell back with full force, trapping him once more. The beams must've shifted because when they crashed down again, his breathing came out in small puffs of air, his ribcage struggling to expand in hopes of getting much needed air.
"Hello?!" His voice was strained with exhaustion and panic. "Hello?! Please! Hey, hey, please. I'm down here! I'm stuck!" His breathing shallowed when he screamed too loud for his body to handle. "I'm stuck. I can't move. I can't . . ."
His mind whirred with ways he could've sensed this. Maybe he should've taken Gwen's advice of telling her to come with him. He was in way over his head. He never allowed himself to admit that he needed her, but in this moment, he needed her like hell. Whenever he was in trouble, she would always be there to save him, and right now, he needed her to save him.
Holding onto that piece of hope, he pleaded out, "Gwen? Are you there? Help me. Gwen? Please."
After waiting for a few tense moments, the only sound being heard was the shifting of concrete and water, he let his head droop down.
His eyes casted down into the water puddle in front of him, his Spider-Man mask drenched in the liquid, half of it submerged, allowing that part to cast his reflection in the water surface. Every few second, it would ripple, a drop of water from a broken pipe leaking into the rubble. His face all scratched up, some blood on his face.
If you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it. Tony Stark's words rang out in his mind. He had to prove Mr. Stark, Gwen -- himself -- that he was capable of being Spider-Man. That Spider-Man wasn't a costume he could put on and pretend to be a hero, but that he is the hero – in his very fiber, in his bones.
"Come on, Peter," he told himself, readying himself to push off again. "Come on, Spider-Man. Come on, Spider-Man." The two beams lifted off the ground enough where he could bring his legs up under him. "Come on, Spider-Man!" Now with the help of his legs, he lifted the beams entirely off him with a yell.
Removing pieces of concrete and rubble around him, Peter made his way up towards the surface, his wet mask in hand. When he glanced back at the destruction, he saw the entire building caved in on itself, water sprouting in a few places from broken pipes, and fire burning all the evidence away.
Toomes was perched on a billboard like a cat, waiting, ready to pounce at a moment's notice to get what he wanted for the night.
The mechanical wings spread open and prepares for takeoff when he was given the green light from his teammate on the opposite end of the call. Spider-Man shoots a web at the billboard and swung onto it, only missing Toomes by a little, who flew away into the night. As a last hope, he shot a web directly at Toomes, his web sticking on the back of the suit.
Peter's mind went back to a few days ago when he was in the exact position with Toomes flying higher and higher into the sky, carrying him with it.
He didn't want to be dropped in a body of water again. He really didn't want to be dropped again.
"Got a visual on the plane," reported Toomes. "Feeling a little resistance."
"It's probably just a drag on the new turbines," the other person replied back smoothly.
Toomes checked behind him, just in case.
When Peter saw his date's dad turn his head to look at him, Peter was never so thankful to be somewhere in the clouds, because that provided the coverage he needed to not be spotted.
Peter (stupidly) decided to look down. He screamed at what he saw – the New York skyline just becoming a blur of lights. If he looked closely, he could see the blue standing out the white and yellow that was his sophomore year homecoming. But as life had turned out, the universe hates him.
"Look out for the cloaking camera. Stay in the blind spots," the other person informed.
Peter looked up to see the plane – which carried all of Mr. Stark's things, which probably costed millions of dollars – came into view. It was hard to spot it since the place was equipped with retro-reflective panels. It took the outside and displayed it on the plane using small cameras all around the plane to camouflage itself into its surrounding.
Toomes flew to the bottom of the plane and latched himself on with picks of a sort.
Because Toomes hung on the plane, Peter lost his way of staying in the air. He scrambled to stick himself to the plane, just barely managing to do so.
"Deploy high-alttidue vacuum seal," the other guys said.
"This better work, Masom," Toomes grunted.
The wings of the suit folded itself around Toomes, latching itself to the belly of the plane, forming a shell around the person inside.
"Trust me, boss," the other man – Mason – said. "Even one of those boxes, and we are set for life."
"Yeah."
Peter couldn't exactly guess what was happening inside the shell thing, but he knew it was bad, and that was all he needed to get going.
He tried to shoot a web (for some reason) but it didn't land its mark because of the high winds were blowing the webs back like silly string. And because of the strong wings, he lost his grip, forcing him to scramble to regain his grip on the plane.
When Peter climbed his way back towards the folded wings, he unknowingly climbed over a few cameras, so his entire body was displayed on the roof of the plane. Now, all he had to do was get the wings to detach itself from the plane and he was in good business. Problem was –
A tiny drone popped out from the wings, making Peter freeze.
Then the plane swerved to the right, leaving the little drone to fly all by itself.
Keeping his palms spread out on the plane, he began to kick the wings in hope of getting them loose.
Then he did.
The sound of alarms reached Peter's senses before the wings popped back out again, and flying off to get away from Peter, all the while he struggled to hang onto the plane.
He crawled his way towards the side of the plane where he said: "Just a typical homecoming on the outside of an invisible jet . . . fighting my girlfriend's dad." Forsome reason, saying that out loud felt weird to him. He would've kept thinkabout it if he wasn't holding on for dear life on the side of a plane that wasn'tsupposed to exist.
Toomes came lurching back in, using the side of the wing to tear a scar in the side of the plane, narrowly missing Peter's head by a few scathing inches.
He shot a web out, connecting him to stick to the wings again, and another one to the plane, suspending him in air a few thousand feet above the ground.
The web snapped off and Peter was sucked into the vortex of the giant engines of the plane. At least Toomes got caught too because he got sucked into the adjacent engine. But since he had wings, he escaped death, but his wing got caught, damaging it a little.
"Oh, God!" cried Peter as he used his web fluid, shooting them towards his doom in the engine. When he expected death, he was relieved to see his shot-in-the-dark plan actually worked as he hung onto the propeller blades that was covered in spiderwebs. "Whew. I can't believe that worked."
The universes did really hate him because just as he said that, the propeller fell off, leaving Peter to scream as he shot a web at the plane wing to stay attached. He kicked the propeller off, making Toomes dodge the incoming piece of metal.
Toomes flew back and attacked Peter, landing on the top of the plane, using his wing's sharp edges to cut each strand of web that was the only thing securely keeping Peter to the plane. Peter tried to keep his distance, but the distance between him and the engine behind him was becoming dangerously shorter as Toomes kept coming. Each time Toomes came, the wings would dig itself into the metal of the plane, releasing piece of it into the engine behind them both.
The engine caught on fire.
Toomes went forward one last time, forcing Peter to jump back into end of the plane, using a single strand of web to keep him in place.
"Chief, chief, you're losing altitude," Mason said worriedly on the other line. "Get out of there."
"I'm not going home empty-handed," growled Toomes.
Using the wings, he began to cut open the plane through all the metal, sparks shooting up only for them to be blown away by the wind.
From his dangling position on the engine, Spider-Man could see the plane was flying straight for the city.
"Oh, my God!" he yelled. He shot a web on the right wing, pulling on it with all his might in hopes of changing the direction. The metal groaned at being bent in a way it was not meant to bend. "Please turn! Please turn!" The web snapped, sending Spider-Man flying away where he had to latch on the wing, only being able to watch in desperation as the plane flew into the city. While he was able to not get it to hit the main city, it still headed for the beaches at Coney Island.
🕷
Gwen could only watch in helplessness on a rooftop in Brooklyn as she saw something crashing towards the ground. With her luck, that has to have been Peter; that's what worried her the most – that it was Peter and not just some other coincidence.
Her phone rang.
Reaching to the hidden pocket in her suit, she pulled out her phone to an unknown number popping up on the screen.
She answered it.
"Hello? Is this Gwen Stacy?" a voice she recognized said.
"Yes, this is her," she answered, frowning. "Happy? What the hell is going on?"
"Should've taken the other guy's warning. I guess he was with you, huh?"
"Yeah, that was Ned."
"You saw the plane, right?" Gwen hummed her answer to Happy. "Find it, and deal with it. I'll get in touch with some people but get there."
"The whole of New York saw the plane. Hey, uh, do you know what happened?" She prayed there was no Peter, and that he was somewhere left on the ground. When she reached the warehouse, she saw it was completely reduced to rubble, first responders already there to search for survivors and to put out the fires.
Happy sighed on the other end. "I think your counterpart has something to do with this." Gwen took a slow, sharp inhale. "Gwen, get there and make sure everything is alright."
"I will."
The call ended.
She refused to let Spider-Man die. Not on her watch.