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“Seriously, drop the guns, we’re in a pet store! A pet store!”
A bird squawks, as if to punctuate his sentence, cats mew and a bunch of puppies yip happily from his left, unaware that there’s a mob of masked guys attempting a robbery.
His words have no effect, if anything it’s just made the group angrier.
“Listen kid, stay the fuck out this. Leave now. Consider this your warning.”
“The name’s spider-man, not spider-kid. Why is that so hard to grasp?” Peter steps closer, slowly - so slowly - stopping abruptly and lifting his hands in appeal as one of the masked men cocks his gun and steps closer to the young cashier frozen by the register.
“Okay, okay, okay! I’m- Just- Just walk away. No one needs to get hurt.” The puppies begin to bark and goddamn they’re adorable, their little bodies creating high-pitched, squeaky noises that are so distracting and… apparently infuriating?
“Byron, will you shut those things up?” Their ringleader orders, one of the shorter masked men looking from the leader to the puppies, back and forth as if unsure what to do and hell no, puppies are not getting hurt. Not adorable, miniature, squeaky, helpless fluff balls. Not on Peter’s watch. But then the leader is stepping closer to the teen cashier, waving the gun around threateningly and shouting an order; “Fucking money in the fucking bag, fucking now.” And yikes, things seem to be escalating and Peter needs to do something before somebody or somepuppy gets hurt. That sixth sense he seems to have developed (spidey-sense is the working title, Ned thought it up) is screaming dangerdangerdanger and he hands himself over to intuition, widening his gaze and sharpening his senses to take in the whole situation.
Budgies up the back; not in harm’s way. Other customers; none. Puppies; main-dude’s lackey is moving towards them (and seems somewhat aghast by what that might mean). Teen cashier; imminent danger and Peter’s main priority. Karen seems to read his hesitation – he’s still relatively new to the whole crime-fighting-spider thing, sometimes he doesn’t know what to do, or, at least, what to do first.
“The assailant closest to the civilian is currently the biggest threat and should be dealt with immediately.”
“Thanks, Karen.” And with that, he’s firing webbing at the leader’s gun, snapping it back and then flinging it up to the ceiling, securing it in place with a quick succession of webbing.
“Run!” He yells towards the teen who apparently doesn’t need telling twice, already making a break for the back door.
The first guy pulls out a knife, the shorter lackey following suit, and Peter lunges forwards, making a swipe for the first knife. They collide, stumbling backwards as a group and into the puppy playpen and then all hell breaks loose – puppies running wild, nipping at their feet, and goddamn it’s hard to grab two knives when you’re dancing around trying not to squish adorable baby animals. He successfully nabs the shorter guy’s knife and flings that up to the ceiling with the gun. It lodges itself into the plaster with the help of some web fluid. The guy then tries to make a break for it, hopping and dodging around puppies on his way to the door. As soon as his hand touches the handle, Peter secures it with his right webshooter while snapping back the leader-guy’s knife with a web from his left wrist. With the shorter guy hopelessly pulling against the webbing by the exit (with one puppy gnawing at the ankle of his jeans and another attempting to play tug of war with his shoelaces), Peter turns his attention back to the masked leader, quickly webbing his feet together so he crashes to the ground, thrashing around frantically as Peter turns his attention to the puppies now running rampant around the store. There’s already a few puddles of pee, some chewed up merchandise, and a few are attempting to lick the gang leader’s face as he thrashes around on the floor and pulls uselessly at the webbing around his ankles.
Standing up tall, Peter surveys the mess.
“How’d we do, Karen?”
“No casualties, human or otherwise. Your reflexes showed a three percent increase in response time as compared to one week ago. Well done, Peter. I’ve notified police.”
Under the mask, Peter grins, “Thanks, Karen.”
And then he’s crouching, ignoring the cursing and the huffing from the two men still in the shop as he’s immediately swamped by puppies nipping and clawing happily at his ankles.
“Hey, little guys! We should get you back to your pen.” He scoops up two squirming puppies, one in each hand, standing and taking them back over to the pen which he rights with his foot before placing the first two gently down. They bound straight over to the corner, yipping and growling as they begin to attack the corner of toys and blankets. And holy fricken fudge, they’re so adorable. He’s bringing May back, ASAP, and they’re going to adopt one of these puppies (he’ll have to convince her to move first, their landlord hates pets. And babies. Peter has suggested their landlord may in fact be Satan. May was not impressed). His spider-sense begins tingling warningly, but Peter knows that the two remaining assailants are incapacitated, their weapons stuck firmly to the ceiling and well out of reach. He does find it hard to tell his new senses apart from adrenaline, sometimes, so he puts it down to the usual rush he gets from a fight. So he goes about his business of rounding up and chasing down puppies, cuddling each up close to his chest before he deposits them back into their pen. He’s getting acquainted with a particularly tiny one when his senses absolutely scream and then yeah, ow. Looking down, there’s a knife lodged into the back of his thigh.
“Dude!” His leg throbs in time serendipitously with the alarm bells of his spidey sense. Looking up, the guy on the ground still has his arm raised tellingly, looking kind of horrified by his actions, as though he didn’t really expect this outcome, either. Peter webs the guilty hand to the floor. Just to be safe. Looking back down, there’s a puddle of blood beginning to pool around his left foot, trickling down the suit (Mr Stark’s going to kill him). Peter kind of wants to throw up. There’s a knife. In his semimembranosus hamstring. Or maybe it’s his semitendinosus hamstring. Sue him, he still gets his anatomy confused. Hopping on his good leg, he deposits the last puppy into the pen and turns his attention to the knife.
His limited first aid knowledge says don’tpullitoutdon’tpullitoutdon’tpullitout, he’s supposed to make a tourniquet bandage, keep it still and let a doctor do the dangerous, gross and painful part. His hand moves towards the handle as he hobbles towards the back exit, hearing sirens approaching and figuring his job here is done.
He makes it into the back alley, panting as he leans back against the damp wall, gritting his teeth against the pounding pain in his leg.
“Karen, how bad is it? Am I dying? I think I’m dying.”
“You’re certainly not dying. The knife missed the femoral artery. With your enhanced healing, you should make a full recovery, but I recommend you seek medical assistance to avoid complications. Infection is probable. Should I notify Tony Stark?”
“No! Nope. Definitely not. I’ve got this.” His hand is shaking as he grips the handle, wincing as this nudges the blade around in the wound. Momentarily, he thinks he might pass out. God, he’s a wimp. He just needs to pull the damn thing out. Quick. Like Aunt May used to deal with bandaids.
“I cannot recommend removing the blade yourself. I cannot accurately estimate the proximity of the knife to your femoral artery, nor whether removing it would cause further muscular damage. Without proper bandaging and remaining in an elevated stance, blood loss could be fatal. I strongly dissuade you from this course of-”
He yanks out the blade and his vision goes white as he staggers forwards, the knife clattering to the ground.
“-action.”
His senses go into overdrive – he can hear the clink of handcuffs over the noise of the puppies in the pet store as the police apprehend the thugs (at least one thing is going right), a car screeches to a stop somewhere in the distance. There’s a rat in the trashcan down the other end of the alley, alongside a hundred other far away sounds. He latches onto them all, breathing hard as his vision clears.
“That was unwise, Peter. You need to stop the bleeding now.”
And Karen, as per usual, is correct.
What was a steady trickle of blood is now just shy of a pulsing gush. So gross.
It’s nearly impossible to twist his torso and get the angle right, but he manages to pinch the wound with one hand whilst he webs all over the front and back of his thigh with the other.
“My apologies, Peter.”
“What? Why? What for? Karen?” He hears the familiar ping of an incoming call and Peter knows who’s going to be on the other end. “Karen, decline call. Decline call! I’ve got this under control!” He takes a step towards the alley wall but ends up staggering headfirst into the bricks with a hiss.
“My apologies. I cannot override my programming. The Baby Monitor Protocol requires me to alert Tony Stark should you suffer potentially fatal wounds.”
“Potentially fatal? I’m fine, Karen.” Yeah, sure, his vision is going fuzzy around the corners, framing the alley floor with a nice, dark vignette, and blood is still pulsing through the webbing on his thigh. But other than that, he’s fine. He relies on his senses to fire a line of webbing blindly upwards, using the webbing’s elasticity to zip himself up to the point and land with a clatter on a rickety fire escape.
“-kid? Kid? Talk to me. Parker?”
And that would be Tony Flippin’ Stark on the phone. He crumples into a crouch, making himself as small as possible against the corner of the fire escape.
“You traitor.” Peter huffs, earning a disgruntles “Excuse me?” from Mr Stark.
“No, not you. Karen. Such a snitch. I’m okay,” Peter mumbles. Crouching like he currently is hurts like hell, but he feels too exposed bleeding out whilst standing.
“You don’t sound okay. I’m upstate, but on my way. Think you can hold on a little longer?”
“Tis but a scratch. A flesh wound.” He twists to get another look at the blood-soaked webbing on his thigh, the tell-tale sound of rushing air sounding through the connection.
Mr Stark snorts, “You’re far too young to quote Monty Python. Stay where you are.”
“No, Mr Stark, I’m fine-” he whines, his spidey-sense blaring threateningly in contradiction.
His mentor gives a frustrated huff on the other end of the line, “No, you’re not. The suit’s scans don’t lie. Unlike you. Now quit complaining. I’ll be there soon. How’d you get stabbed in the thigh, anyway? You’re better than that.”
Peter shrugs, “I guess I didn’t check for hidden weapons. Ignored my senses. Underestimated the perps. Plus, there were puppies. They were kind of distractingly adorable. Can we get one? And keep it at the Avengers facility? Team mascot?”
“Puppies? What the- No. No team mascot. You can’t even take care of yourself.”
“Wait, did you just confirm I’m on the team?”
“I- no. Not when you’re getting stabbed left, right and centre like a total novice.”
“Technically I wasn’t stabbed from the left, right or centre. I was stabbed from behind.” He slumps a little further down the wall, extending his bad leg with the aforementioned stab wound outwards, hissing with the movement.
“Kid, if you think you’re helping your case, you’re not. Stay where you are, I’m nearly there.”
Peter’s pretty sure he can hear a degree of amusement in Mr Stark’s voice; somewhere underneath the badly disguised worry.
“Whatever.” He’s in too much pain to argue. Besides, he doesn’t think he could make it back home to lick his wounds without help. So yeah, maybe Karen wasn’t being a total drama queen.
A few more minutes pass with Mr Stark doing his best to make stilted conversation to which Peter’s too exhausted to reply with his usual enthusiasm. But to Mr Stark’s credit, he tries. He really does. And Peter appreciates it; they talk about school and possible suit mods and upgrades, a welcome distraction from the pain in his leg.
Finally, Iron Man descends on the fire escape, the small space rattling and shaking with the impact from the heavy armour. A drone follows shortly after, humming as it hovers above them.
“Just a flesh wound, huh?” Mr Stark remarks, face plate lifting.
Glancing down, Peter has to admit, it looks pretty flippin’ bad. His senses dull down now that Mr Stark’s there, as if they know help has arrived and he can chill the heck out. Unfortunately, that means it’s a struggle to stay awake and he wonders just how much blood he’s lost. He shrugs as Mr Stark kneels down beside him, the drone lowering to be within reach as a compartment opens to reveal bandages and other medical equipment.
“Hello to you, too.” Peter huffs, head lolling back to rest against the wall, eyes slipping closed.
“I’m going to stop the bleeding and bandage the wound. You okay with that?”
Peter shrugs again, “m’kay.”
Mr Stark is surprisingly swift but gentle, and within minutes the webbing is gone, the wound padded and neatly bandaged instead. It’s much more effective than the webbing, stings a whole lot less, too. Then they’re flying upstate and Mr Stark’s saying something about stitches and infection as they go, and Peter’s certain of two things, even in his somewhat delirious state. One, he much prefers web-slinging to flying. And two, Mr Stark’s never going to let him live down the fact that he had to rescue Peter all damsel-in-distress style. But for now, he’s just glad he hasn’t bled out in that alley and that he doesn’t have to make his way home on his own. This way, he can get himself sorted at the Avengers facility, wait for his accelerated healing to kick in and make his way back to May good as new. As embarrassed as he is that he needed saving in the first place, he’s damn grateful that he was.
“Thanks, Mr Stark.” He’s not sure the billionaire can hear him over the rush of wind as they fly. But after a moment, his mentor replies “Don’t mention it, Pete.”
And it’s about as sentimental as he’s ever heard the genius be. He doesn’t call him kid or Parker, or even Peter. But Pete. And if he wasn’t so exhausted he thinks he might’ve been overwhelmed by the nickname, because it’s the same one that someone else used to call him and ouch it hurts, but not in the same way that his leg hurts. It hurts in a wholesome, meaningful way that he’ll never admit to. And on that note, he passes out.