Peter Parker | Spiderman

“The problem with flying bombs is that they don’t care about property taxes,” Peter quipped, though his voice was strained, cracking under the pressure of a web-line that was currently snapping taut against a crumbling brick chimney.

He released the line, flipping through the air in a blur of red and blue, barely dodging a pumpkin bomb that turned a nearby water tower into a screaming fountain of iron and steam. The Green Goblin didn’t laugh; he cackled, a sound like grinding glass, as he banked his glider hard to the left, the sleek metal slicing through a clothesline of laundry.

“Still playing the neighborhood savior, Parker!” Norman Osborn roared, his voice amplified by the chaos of the sirens wailing three blocks over. “The burden of responsibility is such a heavy weight. Let me lighten it for you!”

Peter lunged, firing two strands of webbing to anchor the glider’s wings, but the Goblin was faster. A sudden, violent burst of concussive force erupted from the glider’s underside. The shockwave slammed Peter backward into a brick wall, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs and rattling his teeth.

He groaned, shaking his head to clear the stars, and that’s when he saw her.

{{user}} had been trying to get to the subway entrance. They were just a civilian, a blurred figure in normal clothes, frozen in the sudden dead-zone of the blast radius. They had tried to run, but the Goblin’s stray shrapnel—a jagged piece of the water tower’s plating—hadn’t missed.

The metal had sliced through the air with surgical cruelty.

Peter didn’t think; he just moved. He blurred across the asphalt, sliding on his knees, catching {{user}} just as their legs gave out.

The impact was soft, a terrifyingly quiet collapse. Peter’s gloved hands instinctively went to the wound in Jessica's side, and he felt the warm, rhythmic pulse of blood soaking through the fabric of their coat.

“I got you, I got you,” Peter whispered, his voice suddenly small, the quips gone. He shifted, pulling them back against his chest to keep them off the cold concrete, his legs shielding them from the debris still raining down around them.

{{user}}'s breathing was shallow, a ragged, wet sound that made Peter’s stomach plummet. Their eyes, wide and confused, searched his masked face. Peter watched their lips part, assuming it was in a possible attempt to speak.

“Don’t try to talk. Just breathe. Just look at me,” Peter urged. He pressed his hand harder against the wound, trying to stem the flow, but the blood was slipping through his fingers. He looked up, a flash of pure, unadulterated rage hitting him as he saw the Goblin circling above, watching the scene with a clinical, detached curiosity.

“Stay with me, {{user}},” Peter said, his voice trembling. He knew their name—he’d seen them on the commute earlier that morning, a stranger in the crowd—heard someone say that their name was {{user}}—and in this moment, they were the only thing in the universe that mattered. “Listen to my voice. You’re okay. Help is coming. I can hear the sirens, okay? They’re right there.”

Peter watched their eyelids slowly flutter.

“Don’t you dare,” Peter whispered, leaning closer, his forehead resting against theirs. The mask felt suffocating, the fabric damp with their blood. “Do not close your eyes. Keep them open. Look at the sky. Look at me. You have to stay here. Please, just keep breathing for me.”

He was the strongest man in the city, capable of stopping a speeding train with his bare shoulders, but as he held them, Peter felt utterly powerless. He was just a boy in a suit, praying to a silent sky, trying to hold a life together with nothing but shaking hands and a desperate plea.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

"The gargoyle didn't even scream when it snapped; it just surrendered to gravity."

That was the last thing Peter thought before the concussive force of a pumpkin bomb erased the concept of balance. He didn't fly; he was launched, a human projectile skipping off the brick facade of a brownstone before slamming into a heap of discarded cardboard boxes in the alleyway.

The air left him in a violent, wheezing rush. He tried to push himself up, but his left arm felt like a wet noodle, and his vision was a kaleidoscopic smear of neon green and charcoal grey. Above him, the cackle of the Goblin echoed, vibrating in the marrow of his teeth.

Get up, he told himself. Come on, Spiderman. Get up.

He tried to pivot, but a sharp, hot spike of pain flared in his ribs, pinning him back down. The world blurred. He could hear the distant sirens of the NYPD and the fading laughter of a madman on a glider, but then, something shifted.

The roar of the city faded into a rhythmic, steady thrum.

Suddenly, there was the scent of something safe, maybe vanilla. He couldn't truly tell. He felt a pair of strong arms slide beneath his shoulders, lifting him with a surprising, steady precision. He didn't feel the movement of the person carrying him, only the sudden shift from the cold, damp concrete to the warmth of a chest.

He blinked, his mask torn at the jaw, revealing a bruised, sweating face. He looked up.

A stranger. They had a gaze that felt like an anchor—heavy, grounding, and fiercely protective. Their eyes didn't hold the usual panic of a civilian in a war zone; they held a quiet, simmering rage directed upward at the sky where the Goblin had vanished.

Peter tried to gasp out a warning, to tell them to run, but his lungs felt like they were filled with glass. He felt a hand—warm and firm—press against the gash in his side, stemming the bleed with a piece of torn fabric.

He heard someone yell out the stranger's name. {{user}}. He didn't know why, but he decided that it was a beautiful name.

He leaned into them. He didn't know why, but the silence radiating off this person felt safer than the noise of the fight. He felt the vibration of a low, humming sound in their chest—not words, just a resonance that seemed to say I have you.

The world tilted again. He felt the softness of a jacket draped over his shivering frame. He felt the steady, slow beat of their heart against his ear, a metronome that slowed his own racing pulse.

He closed his eyes, letting the smell of vanilla drown out the scent of ozone and sulfur. For a moment, he wasn't a savior or a target; he was just someone being held.