I was lucky Peter had a spare suit. I’d left mine, or at least the remnants of mine back home under my bed. But Peter had come prepared, just in case I’d wanted to swing around or patrol with the others. Wearing the red and blue felt a bit weird, but it was only temporary. I’d be back in the purple and black soon.
I fired another web then glanced behind and above, looking to the other three. The four of us swung high above the streets, cutting cleanly through the air as we swung around and past each other in dancelike fashion. I grinned stupidly to myself as I swung, the remnant pain from my injuries barely an afterthought.
Now that I was actually up here, it was fun. Feeling like I was really back had been daunting before, but being here with the others by my side felt right. It'd only taken a few minutes for the fears to just wash away.
The feeling faded somewhat as we rounded the corner, spotting the large, wafting cloud of dust and smoke. It rose from the construction site, towering over the street, and even one or two buildings, casting everything in shadow.
“Holy shit" Jess shouted.
“Jess” Peter warned.
“Sorry”
They four of us continued swinging before Peter gestured for one of the buildings opposite. We all slowed, coming to a stop against the wall face.
“What’s wrong?”
“This looks a little dangerous and I don’t want anyone to get trapped alone. Yu and Jess stick together and take the higher floors. Lucas, stick with me and we’ll take the lower ones”
The other two put their thumbs up and I followed suit before Peter nodded.
“Great. Now come on" he said. "Quickly, but don’t rush it”
Without another word we all leapt from the wall and swung towards the building. Jess and Yu taking off upwards whilst Peter and I carried our swings longer, closing in on the ground. We slowed slightly and then entered the cloud of dust, any hope of seeing further than an outstretched hand disappearing.
Almost instinctively I reached out mentally, feeling out the surroundings with my spider sense.
It was strange, equally familiar and unfamiliar based on the lack of use in the past three years. I slowed and landed against a concrete support, the image of my surroundings growing more solid in my mind by the second.
The construction site was a mess. Tonnes of brick, steel and concrete had collapsed through the centre of the structure and blown even more debris outwards.
The tangle of steel, brick and debris was impossible navigate, even with my spider sense. People had definitely died here. I shuddered slightly, then focused, sensing out further. Peter swung past and instantly started webbing the rubble up to stabilise the chaos.
I followed suit, webbing up all the small spots he’d missed before sensing outwards again. I could feel a few workers still moving, trapped under a beam. The only thing stopping it from crushing them was a small pile of unstable debris suspending the other end up off the ground.
I swung over to them quickly, Peter already two steps ahead. We landed and I rushed forwards to lift the beam.
“Don’t” Peter said, pointing further down. “There’s no way you can lift that evenly and it’s already cracked. It might break and then we’ll crush the guy at the end”
“Crap” I muttered, backing away.
“It’s fine. We’ll just create a support with all our webs then a lever and gently pull it off them”
I nodded and, together, we started. It was quick work with Peter directing me, and in no time whatsoever, we were already lifting the beam off the workers. They scrambled out from underneath it, and slowly we set in back down, the thud of metal against stone echoing throughout the space.
“Jesus Christ I’m alive, I’m still alive” one of the workers muttered to himself, right before throwing up.
“Thank you so much” another said, struggling to breathe.
“Oh god I think my ribs are broken” the final one mumbled, laying flat on his back.
“Don’t worry sir, the ambulances are already on their way” Peter said jogging over to the man. “We’ll get you to a hospital in no time.”
He webbed around the man’s torso, then gently lifted him up. I helped the other two up, and we swung the three back to safety outside the cloud of dust. I glanced up, spotting Yu and Jess zipping between the upper floors and the building next door, web holding the entire building upper half of the building together.
I chuckled. They’d definitely done a better job then I had back in the other universe.
“Spider-Man?”
“Hm?”
“Come on. There’re still people in there” Peter said, gesturing for me to follow.
“Right, sorry” I said, quickly rushing back into the dust cloud. Together, Peter and I worked to clear the bottom three floors, only finding seven more construction workers in total. Thankfully, the full extent of staff hadn’t been present because it was a weekend.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
But as we swung through the fourth floor, I paused against a steel beam and looked around. The surroundings appeared to be moving, shifting somehow. Was my spider sense playing tricks on me?
I waited, watching a few more seconds, and then felt the walls and concrete shift again somehow, parts rising and falling, in a rhythm almost like the rise and fall of a person’s chest.
“Woah” I said looking around. “What the hell?” I muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Peter called out. I hesitated but spoke anyway.
“I- there’s… I don’t know what but…” I frowned, focusing closer. “I think the stone’s moving”
Peter paused for a second too, then looked around.
“You’re right” he said. “Give me a sec”
He tapped on a sleek watch, almost seamlessly connected to his suit and two mechanical spiders disconnected from it before scuttling away.
“What the? What was that?” I asked.
“Spider-bots. They’re great”
“They seem really high tech. Must be expensive”
“Yeah, but spider sense can only get you so far”
I nodded and watched as he pulled his phone out, going back and forth between tapping on the watch and looking at the feed on his phone.
The band blinked and a number flashed on the screen repeatedly, the lettering bright red.
Peter cursed and pressed a few more buttons.
“What’s wrong?”
“We need to close off the area. There’s way too much unstable negative energy here. If it’s messing with our spider sense then it could even be bad for someone crossing the street nearby”
“Oh” I mumbled. “So… is it bad for us?”
“We should be fine because of our powers”
“Ok” I nodded. The ‘should be’ didn’t exactly instil me with a great deal of confidence, but I trusted Peter.
“Now come on, there might be a few more people and we need to find the source of all this” he said. We quickly took to the air, weaving in between supports and large chunks of debris as Peter glanced to the feed on his phone.
“So how do we stop this? Just destroy the source?”
“I wish it was that easy” he chuckled. “We’ll have to bring a few NE catchers and tell the police”
“What do you think caused it?”
“Probably something to do with Norman mixed in with the level of NE already being way too high”
“Norman?”
“Osborne”
“Really? Like, one of those bomb test things?”
“He wants to make bigger bombs and hey, maybe he owns the place and needs the insurance” Peter said. “I wouldn’t put it past him”
I frowned. Blowing up your own construction site to claim insurance and run a bomb test at the same time seemed a bit too cartoonishly evil for a random billionaire, but it sounded like Peter knew the guy better than me.
“Got it” Peter said, suddenly veering off. I followed close behind, as we snaked our way upwards through holes left behind by whatever had caused the wreck. There was less dust here, our surroundings clearer and breathing easier. Finally, we reached a floor that definitely looked like it’d been at the centre of an explosion.
Warped rebar, broken brick and twisted steel beams surrounded us in an almost perfect sphere. I slowed slightly, an unease growing in the pit of my stomach.
Peter flipped and landed down, looking to his phone. He looked up after a moment, and slowly crept towards a pile of debris. With a careful hand he lifted a chunk of rock to reveal a strange metallic object with an LED that flickered dimly, sparks fizzing off the other end of the object every now and again.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I… don’t know” Peter replied. “It looks like one of our NE catchers but it’s different somehow”
“You think it might’ve been left there from the bomb?”
“Maybe” Peter said, looking around. “It definitely looks like a bomb went off here”
“Yeah” I mumbled. Suddenly the surrounding debris and brick creaked loudly. I backed up, my heart beating hard as the sound grew louder and the warping effect returned to my spider sense.
Then suddenly it blared. Peter and I both leapt out of the way, dodging a large chunk of falling debris. But as we landed, the floor began to rumble, shaking and bending as it twisted and contorted beneath or feet.
“I don’t think it’s our spider-sense” I said as it started to die down.
“Dammit” Peter mumbled.
“What?”
“I think the building’s... alive?”
“What?!”
“The NE levels… I think something mutated, merged with the brick somehow”
“Jesus” I mumbled.
I glanced around again, looking around at the now warped space. I paused, doing a double take as I looked behind us. There was a face in the wall.
“Holy shit!” I cried, leaping back.
“What?” Peter said, spinning around.
“…help…please help…” it mumbled. Peter and I both glanced to each other, then back to the face.
“… help…” it muttered.
“Is… did you do this?” Peter said, stepping forwards.
“… accident… want to break free” it said, it’s voice gravelly.
“What happened?” Peter said, stepping closer as I stared at the wall, still in disbelief.
“…bomb… then I was… wall”
I blinked in confusion, as Peter glanced at me, then back to the wall.
“What’s your name?”
“… Jo… Joshua…”
“It’s alright Joshua. We’ll get you out of this”
Suddenly the beating sound of helicopter wings echoed loudly through the site. Peter looked up and cursed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s the MDA. They must’ve sensed the sudden increase in negative energy. They have NE detectors all over the place. Use them specifically to find metas with large scale area of effect powers. City threats as they call them. Dammit, I should of realised when I saw the reading”
“Well, isn’t that good?” I said. “I know they arrest certain metas, but they help with some”
“No”
“What?”
“They have a very… strange definition of what it means to help metas. If they find Joshua here, like this, they’ll try to kill him”
The building began to shake suddenly, the floor and walls warping.
“It’s ok Joshua” Peter said. “Just hide in the rock, bear through this for a few minutes, and we’ll get them out of here. Then we’ll fix what happened to you”
The warping stopped, and after a moment, the face, well Joshua, spoke.
“… thank… you”
Then he faded seamlessly back into the brick of the wall, the concrete only slightly warped.
“So, what now?” I asked. Suddenly a spotlight cut through the dust beaming us in the face from outside, the sound of the helicopter suddenly growing intensely. I shielded my face and looked away cursing.
As my eyes adjusted, I looked back to the light, four soldiers in all black Might style armour landing down. They all stepped forward looking around.
“Spider-Man and… there’s two of you? I thought you all had different costumes”
“I’m new” I said awkwardly. “Well-”
“Don’t care” the soldier said. “There was an NE anomaly here. Have you found it?”
“Yep” Peter said, lifting up the strange NE catcher. “This thing. It’s readings are off the charts”
“What is it?”
“No clue” Peter said, handing it to the soldier. The soldier looked it over, then cursed, mumbling something about Oscorp.
“Come on boys, it was a mis read. There’s nothing to see here. Let’s go”
Quickly, the four of them took off, flying back to the helicopter.
“They’re not even going to stay to help?”
“Yeah, not the best protectors of the city” Peter said.
“Noted” I muttered, listening as the steady beat of the propellers quickly faded.
“Now” Peter said turning back to the wall. “It’s time to figure out how to help Joshua over here”
“Right” I mumbled, watching as the brick warped again to reveal a face. Peter had said we’d be dealing with mutations, but a living building hadn’t been on my bingo card. I sighed, as Peter stepped forward, tapping at his wrist.
I guess everyone had to start somewhere.