Request by @juiceylemons . Thanks for the motivation, I hope you enjoy!
Asthma.
Peter hated it. He'd hoped it had gone away when he'd realised that the spider bite had fixed his eyesight and scrawniness, but that theory was disproven when Peter had an attack whilst changing for PE the next week. The attacks weren't as bad any more, but he figured that was down to his super healing rather than an actual improvement in his asthma.
Obviously, Peter kept his inhaler in his bag at all times, in case of an emergency. However, there were no pockets in his Spiderman suit. He'd never had an attack on patrol, and he guessed he'd thought that he never would. He just felt so much less vulnerable when he had the mask on.
He should have known better, he knew that now.
It was just a normal day at school. Peter aced his Biology quiz, flunked his religion homework because he'd missed the class, and walked out of school with Ned.
"Bye, man!"
"Bye! See you tomorrow," Peter called to his friend as they parted ways, and a moment later he ducked into an alley to change.
As Spiderman it was a pretty uneventful evening. He helped a young boy find his parents, and caught a woman running off with someone's purse. He was about to call it a night when Karen, who was listening to the police radio, alerted his that there was activity several blocks away from him.
It took Peter almost five minutes to swing to the location, where he immediately spotted the problem. An office building was on fire, and firefighters and police were already on the scene.
"Spider-Man!" Somebody yelled, pointing, and all the police looked his way. Peter tensed - they still hadn't given up on the whole vigilantes-being-illegal thing. But instead of trying to arrest him, one of the officers called up to him.
"Spider-Man! There are still people in there, but the entrances are blocked by fire! Can you get through a window?"
Instead of replying, Peter shot them a double thumbs-up and surveyed the building. Most of the fire seemed to be at the base of the tower, the top levels were flame-free but probably full of smoke.
"Karen, active air filter," Peter said quietly, then shot a web and landed on the roof of the building. He crawled upside-down to the nearest window and looked through. Seven people were huddled inside the room, which had rows of desks with computers. They stayed near the floor to avoid the smoke and some had pulled up their shirts to cover their faces or damp cloths tied around their mouths. Peter waved to get their attention, and soon they were all crowding the window.
"I can only carry two of you at a time," he said. "I'll be back." He tucked a worker under each arm and shot a web at a building he'd noticed had a flat helipad roof with a stairwell. He missed, and realised he couldn't swing whilst carrying two adults.
"Make that one," he put down one of his passengers awkwardly. "Back in a sec."
He swung the half-mile between the office and the helipad fourteen times whilst the firefighters did their best to stop the flames spreading and rescue people from the lower floors where their ladders could reach. Then he checked the next floor. Eight people.
The sun had set by the time the whole building was evacuated and the fire was finally out. Peter, exhausted and out of breath, deposited the last person on the rooftop and collapsed beside them, gasping for breath.
Can'tbreathecan'tbreathecan'tbreathe. He doubled over, gasping. Carrying almost 100 people half a mile for 3 hours is not easy, even for Spider-Man. His body was at breaking point and his mind was barely functioning, which is probably why he pulled his mask up to breathe without thinking. He was able to take a huge breath of air, yes, but as he did so he realised why it had been so hard to breathe before. Karen must have been ins overdrive trying to filter enough air for him to keep going, and 3 hours was a long time for smoke to spread. It was in the air all around them, the stench clinging to the clothes of the people around him.
"Oh no," Peter wheezed as he felt his throat begin to constrict. "Not now..."
He started gasping, panicking as he began running out of oxygen. His inhaler was at home, too far to swing before he passed out. Oh Lord, he was going to die and there was nothing he could do-
People left on the roof around him, the ones that hadn't already taken the stairs down, started noticing that their rescuer was struggling to breathe.
"What's going on?"
"Is he okay?"
"Oh heck, he's having an attack!"
"Spider-Man!"
One woman in a suit rushed forwards, flinging her briefcase open on the ground. Papers flew everywhere as she grabbed something out and thrust the inhaler at him.
He wasn't able to thank her, just snatched the inhaler and shoved it into his mouth, sucking greedily. After a few second, he felt his breaths become easier. He took one last breath of the medicine, then took a few moments to breathe, pulling his mask over his chin to get back to the filtered air.
When he'd recovered enough, despite still being a bit shaken, he handed the inhaler back to the woman, still breathing heavily.
"Thank you," he whispered hoarsely. "Thank you."
"No, thank you," the woman insisted, closing her briefcase again. "You save people every day. It's about time someone returned the favour."
The news that Spider-Man had had an asthma attack spread quickly, and the next day, being asthmatic was the trendiest thing of the week. Of course, when Mr Stark caught wind of the incident, he modified Peter's suit to filter in the same drugs in his inhaler to stop it ever happening again.