Chapter Text
The sun shines brightly over New York, spilling gold across the city. People stroll by with easy smiles, dogs tug at leashes, and every vendor Peter Parker passes has a stuffed tip jar. Even the usual gasoline-and-trash odor seems to have lifted, a fresh scented air of peace replacing it.
A golden doodle passes him, tail wagging and tongue hanging in the warm air, panting adorably. I’d like a dog, Peter thinks with a grin.
As Spider-Man, he never lets his guard down completely, but for now, earbuds in, playlist humming, he lets himself relax. The music drowns out the chaos, and for once in a while, the world feels simple.
Normally, patrol comes first and homework later. But one too many missed assignments after a particularly rough night had convinced May to ask him to switch his priorities.
Before long, the familiar apartment complex looms ahead. He dashes inside, waves to the neighbor kid pedaling past, and impatiently jabs at the elevator button until the dented doors screech open. The chipped “7” on the panel is nearly illegible, the black paint almost entirely rubbed off.
Pipes rattle between the walls, and the flickering of lights paired with the robust sound creates a familiar cacophony of emotion. Even though he’s on his way to his apartment, the observation still manages to make Peter feel homesick, in a way.
The second the door shuts behind him, a weight lifts off his shoulders. Shoes thudded against the wall as he kicked them off. Finally, silence. No honking cars, no chatty neighbors, no responsibilities—at least for the next sixty seconds. The couch practically swallows him whole, and for the first time all day, he lets himself breathe.
The relief is short-lived. His stomach growls. Too early for dinner, too late to ignore. Sighing, he drags himself to the fridge, mind already contemplating his options.
Near the top shelf sits a scuffed container with a Post-it on the lid: Dinner. Be safe tonight! Love you. His mouth tugs into a smile at the thought of May scribbling the note before rushing off to work. He slides the glass tupperware onto the countertop and flicks the lid off.
His smile fades. He loves May to death, obviously, but her cooking skills? Well, her food essentially tastes like death. There was a reason that they typically ordered takeout.
It looks less like pasta and more like a grade-school science project, and he fights the urge to put it out of its misery by simply dumping it into the trash.
Still, tossing it out feels cruel. He slides the dish into the microwave and jogs back to the couch, tugging his binder free from the overstuffed backpack. He tallies off his workload on his fingers: one Spanish, one Physics, two Biology. Manageable.
By the time the microwave beeps, his assignments are stacked neatly. Peter scarfs down May’s lasagna, trying to ignore the displeasing taste. With a sigh, a pen finds itself in Peter’s hand so he can finish his papers. When everything is done and dealt with, Peter glides the materials back into his binder, finally retreating to his room to change into the expensive spidersuit.
Some days, swinging around on patrol was his highlight of the day, but on others, he finds himself in sticky situations. Pulling the mask over his head, Peter laughs at his own joke.
Sticky situations. He can practically see Mr. Stark rolling his eyes at the cheesy pun. He’d have to recycle it the next time he saw him. Which would be tomorrow at the Tower, he reminded himself–with a childish surge of excitement.
Mask on, pulse racing, Peter slips out the fire escape, making sure to leave from the side opposite to May’s apartment. The sun isn’t gone yet, but the shadows are stretched long across the sidewalks below.
For a moment, he stands on the metal landing and watches the city, absorbing the people around him in a sonder moment. With one last look back, he heads off into the skyline.
High above, streaks of white cut across the orange-tinted sky, and the Long Island Sound catches the fading light in fractured silver. For a fleeting moment, the view is beautiful. Then a car alarm shatters the calm.
“How cliché,” Peter mutters, veering toward the sound.
On the street below, a man in a grey hoodie jimmies a BMW with a wire hanger. Spider-Man launches downward and taps his shoulder.
“Tell me this is just a big misunderstanding?”
The man bolts. With a flick of the wrist, a web latches to a streetlight, vaulting him ahead. Peter trips the thief with a quick line to the ankles. The crook hits the ground face-first.
The vigilante bites back a laugh as he hauls him up, leaves a note, calls the cops, and swings off in search of one last job before heading home.
He doesn’t have to wait long. A pickpocket’s hand slips into an old woman’s purse. Peter swoops down and plants a gentle kick on the man’s face, not strong enough to hurt him (too badly), but firm enough to send him falling back onto his bottom.
He couldn’t stand crooks messing with the innocent, especially not the helpless elderly. The old lady stumbles away, clutching her purse close to her chest. She smiles warmly and mutters a thanks, leaving Peter face-to-face with the responsible person. In the end, yes, the culprit was an insolent lowlife, but a simple pickpocket.
He opened his mouth to offer a lecture.
“If you can’t get by, that’s one thing—”
But his spider-sense screams, a visceral alarm he could never ignore. He instinctively steps back. Swiping at his nose, the man smacks his knuckle into the tip. Despite it not hurting, Spiderman’s eyes still water under the spandex.
A glint of metal catches a ray of orange-tinted sunlight, and Peter’s heart climbs up his throat. He tries to swat at the syringe, but the effort is useless.
The needle pierced through the fibers of his suit, plunging cold fluid deep into his veins.
“Shit,” he gasps.
Peter expects excruciating pain to take its course or to drift away into a realm of unconsciousness. He leaps to his feet once again. Except, he doesn't.
He tries to laugh it off, to move, to do anything, but his body is still against the grey pavement. He hadn’t ever paid attention to the pattern of slightly raised bumps and wads of ancient chewing gum before, but as he lay against it, unable to get up, his brain analyzes the setting in agonizing detail. A paralytic, he realized. Had to be. Nothing else could shut him down this completely.
The poison doesn't hollow; it burns.
Spreading like fire, it erases every inch it comes into contact with, transforming every nerve, bone, and cell into a dusty pile of figurative char.
His limbs dissolve into dead weight, nerves gone silent, body refusing to obey. A paralytic. Strong, terrifyingly so. The feeling is one he’s never experienced before.
The sheer helplessness is ineffable. His thoughts slow to molasses. Drool slides beneath his mask, the stickiness of the warm saliva gluing to his skin. The world swims and rocks as his body starts to move, being dragged away from the middle of the sidewalk. Gloved hands clamp tightly around his lifeless arms and shoulders, tugging and hauling his unresponsive, deadweight body deep into the shadows of a narrow, garbage-strewn alleyway.
Each bump and jagged edge leaves a new raw patch, stinging with every movement. Through the fog of his fractured senses, Peter distantly registers an alarming detail: his suit, his very identity, is gone. When had they stripped it away? He tries to remember, panic sparking, but the answer slips through his weak grasp.
He fights desperately to remain conscious, to cling, even just a little longer, to reality.
His mind scrambles for lifelines. The memory of May’s messy handwriting, stuck on the leftovers from earlier, late nights with Mr. Stark in the lab, spent engineering the spider suit, or coming up with fresh inventions—the good night and good morning texts that he and MJ exchanged daily.
But the strain to focus on positive thoughts backfires. He imagines tomorrow.
His Aunt May calls in a panic when her only nephew fails to return home, and Tony pieces together the puzzle, realizing that something horrible has happened.
The thought of them worrying and searching is enough to send him over the edge.
He prays they’d find him, a silent plea that fades as the darkness closes in.