Peter sighs as he gets into his apartment. The smell of a familiar home engulfs his senses. Taking in a scent of lavender air freshener and leftover Thai take out food.
He goes to his room and drops his backpack down by his desk, almost knocking over a silver suitcase.
The same suitcase that has his new and improved Spider-Man suit in it.
He hasn't been able to actually take it for a spin..now's a better time than any?
He plops the suitcase on his small bed and presses the front buttons. Immediately, his head doesn't throb anymore. The pain in his cheek subsides.
He takes in the red and blue material, the black spiderwebbing and armbands all together. The wristbands click and beep, fully charged with new webbing.
It wouldn't hurt to take one swing today...
•••••
The adrenaline pumps through Peter's veins as he swings through the busying city of New York. Here in the air, there's nothing that stops him. Having the suit built by Tony Stark with new abilities is exciting.
He aims and shoots a line of web at a hanging crane and uses his momentum to push himself up toward it. He lands right on top of it and he looks around, getting a feel of where he is.
From up here, he can see miles upon miles, of course with the help of his spider sense. He can hear and see things that help him fight his way through crime. And living in New York all his life has helped naturally navigate his way through the streets.
He stands up slowly, the breeze from high altitude makes the crane wobble a bit, but not enough so that Spider-Man falls off.
He looks around to see nothing but twist and turns of streets, people the size of ants, cars honking because of traffic. Suddenly, to the far side of his right, a line of speeding police cars and a police helicopter come into view. Whenever there's a helicopter, you know there's something big.
The cars zoom by him and the helicopter's blades encircle wind, making Peter grip onto the crane for support.
"Alright..what do we got?" Peter takes his focus on the helicopter and taps a few buttons on his wrist. A static sound, like from a walkie-talkie, is what he picks up from the helicopter. He turns a small knob and tries to pinpoint and hack into the communicating system.
Eventually, he hears a woman's voice over the intercom and listens closely.
"He have a 10-89 on the South of Canal Street. Address 352, suspect believe to be Dominic Staffer. Hostages have been recognized, in need of BDU on stand by." The intercom logs out and Peter stands up.
"BDU...The Bomb Disposal Unit? Oh no.." He shoots a web at the bottom of the helicopter and hoists himself up so that he's hanging from the landing feet.
•••••
"Tell me where she is! Now! Tell me where my wife is or I'll blow this guys arm off—"
"Mr. Staffer, were not going to harm you. Just put the man down.." several cops point their guns toward a distressed bald man, completely in tears. The crime is going down in an abandoned building that used to be a bank.
"Ash—Ashley..you all took her from me! Where is she?!" The man rests his thumb on a rectangle shaped box with a button stuck to the top. Around his arm is a man with broken glasses, he's in a pin up suit, clearly quite a rich man. His hair is tasseled and his breathing, unsteady. Around his wrist is a duck taped package of C4, about the size of a brick. On top of it, a timer set to 30 seconds.
"I want my wife back—" the man, Dominic, begins to sob, "Give her back to me..." he rests his thumb on top of the button and the line of cops start to panic.
"Staffer! Put it down!"
"Please, no no no!" The man held hostage starts to cry out also in panic.
Suddenly, police cars with blaring sirens come into view of the windows outside and a helicopter rests on top of the building.
"No, no, no, no...." Staffer lets go of the man from his arm and covers his mouth and eyes, completely breaking down. "I'm so sorry Ashley, so so sorry.."
Peter suddenly swings through the open doors and immediately sees the beeping device.
"Spider-Man!" A nervous cop exclaims. He spots the guns all pointed toward one guy, a guy with a detonator in his hand.
"Hey—hey man. I don't think you want to do that," Spidey puts both of his hands up toward Staffer and stays straight by the door, "You see him? He's scared straight alright?" He points toward the man in a suit, the one who's being held hostage. "Just—let him go..and we can talk about what you want, okay? We'll just talk guy-to-guy—" Peter says calmly, trying to act like everything is cool.
"B-but I cant let him go. H—he took away my wife. He took away my Ashley, I have to find her—" Dominic says through gritted teeth and placed his thumb on the button.
"Okay, okay. You know what? You and me? We'll find her together, that's what we'll do alright?" Peter cautiously becomes closer to the man as he uses light footing to not startle the guy.
"Find...Find Ashley.."
"Yes, just let me get this off of him, and I'll help you." Spider-Man is now only 3 feet away from the hostage and the distressed man.
The man seems to have calmed down; He lowered the button down to his side.
"Good, good. Now um, boys? Hold your fire. My buddy here, Mr Staffer, is gonna be fine--" Spidey faces the cops as they begin to lower their weapons. They give each other worried glances and stand where they are.
"--I won't be with him alive."
Peter hears a faint beep sound and then a click from a gun behind him.
His reflexes and Spidey-sense coming in, he quickly spins and kicks the gun from Dominic Staffer's grasp just as he fires it in the ceiling.
The beeping sound came from the bomb, and Peter sees that the count down has started from 30 seconds going down.
The cops immediately put their guns a toward the fight and are about to fire as Peter yells to them,
"No! No! No! Don't shoot!!"
Suddenly, he hears an angry raged scream coming from behind and he quickly jumps upward and then does a backward flip in the air. While airborne, he shoots two webs at Staffer's feet so that he trips and falls.
When he lands, Peter then restrains Staffer by sticking his hands with webs on each to the ground.
"Please, get this off.." the hostage pleads.
Spider-Man goes over to the man and rips off the duct tape that was strapped to his arm.
But now he has the bomb in his hands.
"Um—okay." Taking apart a computer is the same thing right?"
"There's no time, it's going to go off!" A cop says, reading Peter's mind.
The timer now says 21 seconds.
"Oh crap.." Spidey quickly runs out of the building and passes the police cars. He jumps off the ground and swings with the bomb in his hand.
Oh god, oh god, you can do this Pete.
He swings over to the Seneca Lake that's near by, a big huge body of water that's big enough for an explosion. Spider-Man passes civilians, all staring and some taking videos on their phones.
He looks down at the timer; 11 seconds before it goes off. He sees the lake and lands on the grass of the park surrounding the water. While running, he says to himself,
"You got this, you got this—" he then shoots his web on the bomb so that it's entirely covered.
"2 years of baseball, don't fail me now!" He grunts as he throws the bomb towards the lake as hard as he can. It flies through the air as it beeps, Peter's heart races as it falls down and plops in the water.
And just a few seconds later, a giant geyser of water blasts upwards in the air. A loud booming sound goes along with it.
Peter jumps back as a quick reaction and an irregular faint purple glow of the explosion eventually dies down.
"Woah. Cool.." he smiles to himself, knowing he saved some lives today, and swings back to where the crime began.
•••••
He perches on top of a tall building and sees cops putting up a barrier to protect civilians as they all record on their cameras. The police has Dominic Staffer in handcuffs and stuffs him in a police car. Tears roll down his cheeks and the purple eye bags under his eyes droop.
Peter felt bad for the guy, he always feels bad for the bad guys, no matter what they did.
"Look! Spider-Man!" Someone yells from below. He looks to see a crowd of people cheering for him.
He laughs to himself, pleased with what he did today, and puts two fingers up to his head and signals them off.
He swings back to his apartment, on the way, calling Happy Hogan.
The phone rings but he doesn't answer so Peter leaves a message.
"Happy? You have no idea what I just did."