› CHAPTER TEN ‹
Raleigh met Peter on the neighbor's roof and Peter explained about a huge blast that appeared in the distance. Just when he was working to point in the direction he had seen it, another explosion detonated in the same vicinity. It was exactly as Peter had described it. It was a bright blue hue that erupted past the trees and buildings. The sound took a few seconds to reach their ears but when it did, it sounded like thunder cracking. Whatever it was, it was definitely not normal and couldn't be safe in the slightest.
"Okay," Raleigh nodded. It was more to himself than anything. He stripped himself of his normal clothes. "Okay, we should go."
Peter was already jumping from the roof, leaving Raleigh to urgently run after him. Throwing his last shoe behind him and planting the mask onto his face, he followed suit. With a sure breath, he jumped off the roof and glided through the air for a short moment. He crashed into the neighbor's garden, accidentally crushing the previously beautiful daisies.
Spitting out the dirt from his mouth, he jumped back to his feet and chased after Peter.
With Peter swinging from tree to roof and Raleigh running after him, it was obvious who had the convenient ability compared to the two... So Raleigh couldn't help but laugh wildly when Peter suddenly stopped. It seemed the Spider-Man had met his match—an area that was bare of anything he could swing on.
Raleigh didn't slow down for Peter as he passed him, causing Peter to chase Raleigh while crying about the terrible occurrence. His whining ended abruptly when the golfing arena came to an end and trees and building approached again. Relieved and happy, Peter shot his web to a nearby tree and started to pull himself towards it, and on his way, he grabbed Raleigh's wrist, hauling him along.
"A little warning would be good next time!" Raleigh hissed at Peter. Peter sneered under the mask.
Another blast went off under an abandoned highway bridge, and Peter cautiously and silently swung with Raleigh towards it. He grabbed onto the side of the bridge and carefully lowered Raleigh down below him behind the pillar wall.
"Okay, okay. I got what you need, all right?" One of the men, the seller with a beard and a beanie, said. "I got tons of great stuff here. One second."
He approached the back of an open van and fumbled with the different trinkets in there. From where Raleigh stood, he couldn't exactly tell what he had hidden in there, but he knew that at least one of them created multicolored explosions.
"Okay, I got black hole grenades, Chitauri railguns..." The seller listed off, and Raleigh became tense after hearing what the man was saying. Chitauri? Raleigh had no idea how they got their hands on those since the government had been the one to clean that mess up a long time ago, and a part of him feared what that railgun could do considering how dangerous the Chitauri were.
"You letting off shots in public now?" Another seller, Raleigh assumed, said. He was bald and had a deep complexion. He was walking around a bit and seemed on edge. "Hurry up. Look, times are changing. We're the only ones selling these high-tech weapons."
"Oh, this must be where the ATM robbers got their stuff," Peter whispered just loud enough for Raleigh to hear.
The buyer put his hands in his pocket. Raleigh could see the uncertainty in his expression. "I need something to stick up somebody. I'm not trying to shoot them back in time."
The man with the beard hummed in understanding and listed off some other gadgets, and one of them caught the buyer's attention as he approached the vehicle.
A loud yodeling ringtone echoed through the abandoned area, and Raleigh jumped at the sudden sound. He looked up, knowing the annoying tone belonged to Peter Parker. The boy was trying desperately to end the call. But, ultimately, he failed from doing so before the men heard it.
"What the hell is that?"
"Did you set us up?" A gun clicked.
"Hey, hey, man." The buyer backed away with his hands up.
Peter shut his phone up and flipped down from his hiding spot. He raised his hands and called for the seller's attention.
"Hey!" Peter yelled. "Come on. You gonna shoot at somebody, shoot at me."
Raleigh ran a hand down his face but grew pale at the bald man's following words.
"All right."
"Whoa!" Raleigh screamed and jumped out from behind the pillar. The two sellers turned to the new figure with confusion and seething anger. In their moment of distraction, Peter used his webs to rip the gun from the bald man's hands.
Peter traversed around Raleigh and ran at the sellers. Raleigh followed; however, the bearded man grabbed one of his gadgets and punched Peter with it. The impact cracked as electricity shot into Peter, causing him to throw the boy backward. Raleigh didn't have time to gather what had happened before Peter's body knocked into the front of his own body. They both slammed into the pillar.
Raleigh heaved, his hand slamming onto his chest as Peter rolled off of him. He wanted a moment to understand what happened and how much pain he was in, but when the men started sending out strange energy blasts at them, neither of them had time to do anything aside from getting out of the way.
The blast exploded the pillar.
"What was that?" Peter groaned, helping Raleigh to his feet. And as soon as he was on his feet, Peter left him and ran after the van. He attached a web to the back of it, almost immediately losing his footing and falling onto his stomach. The van didn't notice and continued to speed away, dragging Peter's struggling body behind them. Raleigh chased them.
Raleigh thrust his arms forward, and he watched as his power swam through the air, sweeping past Peter and encasing the white van in a shade of shimmering gold. Once Raleigh felt the clasp of the power and the van, he worked to summon it back to him. But with the speed and the competitive direction the vehicle was going caused Raleigh to be dragged forward.
The two heroes weren't in a great position. Raleigh was skating with his feet across the asphalt while Peter slid across on his stomach. It only got worst for them when the bearded seller opened the rear door and laughed at their predicament. He picked up a new machine and pointed it at both Raleigh and Peter. Fortunately for them, the man didn't expect the intense kickback from the weapon, causing him to lose control of it. Luminescent purple energy blasted into one of the rear doors and it was thrown between Peter and Raleigh, where it landed in someone's front yard.
With the next blast, Raleigh hadn't gotten lucky.
Raleigh began to slow down the van a tiny bit, and the bald-seller had noticed and yelled at his co-worker to do something about the other one. The bearded-seller had been happy to oblige and wildly pointed the machine at Raleigh. He sent off another energy blast at him. With little time to react, Raleigh dropped his hold on the vehicle, sending him tumbling to the ground. The current flew over his head and into a nearby parked car, barely missing Raleigh's head.
He ignored the stinging in his hands and got back up, noticing that Peter had also been forced to let go after he plowed through three trash dumpsters before finally face planting into a stone mailbox. He winced for him and raced over to his aid. He turned him over. His eyes were closed, so Raleigh shook him.
"You still alive?" Raleigh tried to joke, but the quiver in his pitched voice was there. He looked from Peter to the van that was getting farther away. "Peter..."
The boy gasped and sat up, literally shaking off his pain. He moved Raleigh out of his way and shot a web out at the car, grabbing the other rear door, but just like the last one, it fell off.
"Great. Guess we're gonna have to take a shortcut." Peter shook his head and motioned Raleigh to the neighbor's yard. It sounded all fine and dandy to Raleigh until he noticed the large gate that protected the house from invaders. Raleigh watched with slitted eyes as Peter jumped over the tall fence with ease.
"Jerk." Raleigh cursed to himself. He examined the length of the gate and the fence. He knew there was a chance that he could glide himself over it, but with the next yard having an unprotected front yard, he decided that would be the safer option for Raleigh. He turned to Peter, who was sliding down a car. Two people were staring in astonishment, but Raleigh ignored them and called out to Peter. "I'll meet you in the next yard!"
He didn't give Peter a chance to argue before running to the next yard. They had a fenced backyard, but it was about the same height as Raleigh, so he used his powers to help him jump over the privacy fence. But, of course, since Raleigh was a mess when it came to his powers, he stumbled his landing on the other end. He straightened himself up and noticed a group of young adults staring at Raleigh with comedically open mouths.
A nervous chuckle passed his lips. "Sup."
Raleigh only had time to see one of them wave before he was pulled from the ground by Peter's webbing. While it was more convenient for them both to stay together and quickly get through the neighborhood, Raleigh wasn't used to the feeling of being swung around with no say in where he was going. He had to continuously use his power to make sure any tree branches didn't smack him across in the face.
Peter attached a web to the bottom of a treehouse and used that to swing off of it, but it wasn't anchored down correctly, so when both of their body weight pulled at it, it caused it to collapse on itself. Peter's acceleration broke, and with no other objects for Peter to attach himself to, he began to descend at high speed. He dropped Raleigh before he fell into a metal shed, and Raleigh triggered his power just in time to boost his body from the ground, allowing him to softly lower himself back onto it.
He could hear objects breaking from inside the collapsed shed, and he ran towards it. However, as he arrived at where the door was, Peter came tumbling out of it, still on his feet and running forward.
"Come on!" Peter yelled, and Raleigh replied by following him. Peter ran through everything, creating a destructive path in his wake, and Raleigh followed him through it, apologizing to anyone they disturbed. They jumped through a bush-fence, and the scent of barbeque filled their noses. "Smells good!"
They continued into the next neighboring yard, where a group of people were having a pool party.
"Great movie!"
Raleigh saw they were playing Ferris Bueller's Day Off and at that moment Raleigh realized the two teens were basically reenacting the famous race home. He grinned to himself at that thought. Peter swung through the party, his feet skidding across the water, generating a large splash which attacked the girls hanging out by it. Peter continued to the other side, taking their fairy lights with him.
"Uh," Raleigh hesitated for a moment seeing the seething glares he was receiving from the girls, "s-sorry about that."
They huffed at him, and Raleigh hastily made his exit, no more elegant than Peter. His foot got caught on the wire fence, and he tumbled to the ground on the other side. Girls screamed, and their screams only grew shriller when they noticed another strangely dressed boy in their yard.
Raleigh jumped back to his feet and followed where he saw Peter swinging away. And with one more jump over a fence, he was back to where the road was.
"Come on, come on." Peter grabbed Raleigh's wrist again and lurched themselves onto the house across the street. He let him go when both their feet landed on the roofing. Peter remained in front while Raleigh struggled behind him. He was beginning to feel the strain of the chase, making Raleigh wish he paid more mind to the fitness challenge day in gym class.
He used his power to make it easier to jump across from house to house, yet because of the exertion he had to use to pick himself up, it was leaving a few roof shingles to shatter (not to add the ones that were slipping to the ground from the two teens running across it.) A small price to pay for their safety, Raleigh kept saying.
At the end of the row of houses, Peter jumped, and Raleigh followed suit. The van was right under them at that point.
"Surprise!"
Gold seeped out of Raleigh's fingers, prepared for a fight; however, the two were seized before they could make contact with the van. Raleigh's power dissolved back to his skin when a sharp stabbing pain, like a needly, pinched into his right arm. Squinting his eyes, he looked at it, and somehow he could make out that it was a bird's talon—a mechanical bird's talon. If it wasn't for Stark's suit, he knew the mechanical claws would be piercing his skin.
"What the hell?!" Peter yelled from beside Raleigh. The boy looked at Peter, not realizing he had been snatched as well, finding that he was dangling by his foot. He also noticed the sight of the van becoming smaller and smaller as they were being raised higher and higher into the sky.
In a now panic, Raleigh looked up at the thing that grabbed them, but he could only make out two glowing green eyes piercing down at Peter and Raleigh. He squeezed his eyes shut and scratched at the metal holding his arms, hoping he could find a way to get him and Peter out of the mess they were in. Yet, it seemed Peter and Raleigh's suit recognized the trouble they were in and activated parachutes on both boys, ripping them from the creature's talons and sending them straight downward.
It was then that Raleigh realized how high-up they had been, and a panicked scream escaped his lips. His terror only intensified as his body slammed into the parachute, causing the cloth and strings to tangle around his body, blinding Raleigh from where he was in the sky and making him unable to prepare for the unavoidable plunge into the earth.
So when his body was slammed and submerged in water, a cry of surprise left him, creating a larger problem as water entered his lungs and his need for oxygen much greater.
He thrashed around in the parachute, begging and crying for the cloth to loosen away from his body, but it only seemed the water made it worst as it hugged his body tighter. He started to feel himself slip out of consciousness just as an orange glow blinded him. Cold metal hands urgently untangled the parachute from his body before ripping Raleigh from it and flying him out of the lake.
Raleigh coughed out the liquid, feeling his lungs loosening up with every breath. He let out a weak smile and patted Iron Man's metal hands in a silent way to thank him.