The city was a smear of neon and despair, spinning beneath me. My left arm hung at an angle that defied anatomy, and every ragged breath felt like I was gargling glass. The fight with Hustler had taken more than a pound of flesh; it had taken the foundations, leaving only the rickety scaffolding of a boy in a torn costume.
I fired a web line, the thwip a weak, pathetic sound. The line caught, and I swung, my body a dead weight on the end of the rope. The arc was shallow, drunken. Halfway through, the world grayed out. The roar of the city faded to a distant hum. My fingers, slick with my own blood, slipped. Gravity, that old nemesis, welcomed me back with open arms.
Falling. Again.
But this time, the pavement didn't rush up to meet me. A shadow blotted out the moon—sleek, silent, and impossibly fast. A metallic hiss cut through the wind, and something caught me, not with the jarring snap of a web, but with a firm, cradling force. I was being reeled in, a hooked fish pulled from the depths.
Through a haze of pain, I saw the familiar silhouette of a Quinjet. The ramp was open, a warm, golden light spilling into the cold night. Figures stood within, shapes I recognized from a world I was only ever a guest in. Captain America. Iron Man. Their faces were grim.
"Got him," a voice said, tinny and distant. It was FRIDAY, Mr. Stark's AI. "Energy signatures from the Hustler event were off the charts. Figured you might need a lift, kid."
Hands, strong and professional, pulled me aboard. The cold metal floor was a shock against my back. I tried to speak, to say thank you, to say anything, but my throat was a desert. One word, one name, clawed its way out, a ghost on my lips.
"Elaine..."
I saw them exchange a look, but there was no judgment in it, only a deep, profound weariness. They knew better than to press a hero bleeding out on their floor. They just saw the damage, and they went to work.
The next time I woke, the world was white. Not the soft, forgiving white of clouds, but the sharp, sterile white of a place built to cheat death. The air smelled of ozone and advanced polymers. A steady, rhythmic beep was my only companion. I was in the med-bay at Avengers Tower.
My mask was gone.
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the fog of painkillers. I tried to sit up, but a hand on my shoulder gently pushed me back down. It was Tony Stark, looking tired, his trademark swagger replaced by a somber pragmatism.
"Easy, kid. You're not going anywhere," he said. He gestured to my arm, now encased in a sleek, carbon-fiber cast. "We set the bones. You've got three broken ribs, a class-three concussion, and you were down about two pints. Med-bay docs said your healing factor is already kicking in, which, frankly, is cheating."
"My... my mask," I rasped, my voice sounding alien.
"It's safe. Your secret's safe," Tony assured me, his tone leaving no room for argument. "No one here but the A-team saw your face. But we can't keep you here. It'd raise too many questions."
He paced for a moment, hands clasped behind his back. "So, here's the story. Peter Parker, bright but tragically clumsy high school student, was at the big Hustler show. During the... unpleasantness... a piece of the stage rigging came down. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. A real hero, one of my guys, pulled you out of the wreckage." He tapped a tablet, and a news report flickered to life on a nearby screen. My own school picture stared back at me. Local Teen Injured in Times Square Chaos.
"It's clean, it's believable, and it gets you out of my multi-billion-dollar tower and into a perfectly adequate public hospital where you belong," he finished, a hint of the old Stark snark returning. "FRIDAY is already scrubbing security footage and planting a digital breadcrumb trail. As far as the world is concerned, Spider-Man saved a bunch of people and swung off into the night. Peter Parker got unlucky."
I just stared at him, my mind struggling to process the layers of deception. He was saving my life in more ways than one.
"Thank you," I managed to say. The words felt small, insufficient.
"Don't thank me," he said, his eyes meeting mine. They were darker than I'd ever seen them. "Just get better. The world needs... well, you know."
The transfer was a blur. One moment I was in the futuristic cocoon of the Avengers' med-bay, the next I was on a gurney, rolling down a hallway that smelled of bleach and cafeteria food. They'd swapped out the high-tech cast for a standard plaster one, wrapped my ribs in thick bandages that constricted my already battered chest, and dressed me in a standard-issue hospital gown that offered zero dignity. I was no longer a fallen Avenger-in-training. I was just Peter Parker, unlucky kid. It felt strangely, terrifyingly normal.
The hum of the machines was a constant lullaby of survival. For a day, I drifted in and out of a medicated haze. Then, the visitors started.
The first was a whirlwind of frantic energy and fear. Aunt May burst through the door, her face pale, her purse clutched in a white-knuckled grip. Her eyes scanned me from head to toe, and the dam of her composure broke.
"Oh, Peter," she breathed, rushing to my bedside. Her hands hovered over me, afraid to touch, as if I might shatter. When she saw I was awake, truly awake, a sob of pure relief escaped her. She grabbed my good hand, her own trembling violently. "The hospital called... they said there was an accident... a stage collapse... I thought..."
She couldn't finish. She just squeezed my hand, her warmth a tether to the world I fought so hard to protect. "You gave me the worst scare of my life, honey. The absolute worst."
I squeezed back, a fresh wave of guilt washing over me. This was the cost. This raw, unfiltered pain in the eyes of the woman who had raised me. "I'm okay, May," I whispered. "I'm okay. Just clumsy." The lie tasted like ash in my mouth.
Harry came next, a stark contrast. He sauntered in with a plastic bag full of contraband—chips, candy bars, and a stack of car magazines. He was trying for nonchalant, but his eyes darted around the room, taking in the IV drip and the heart monitor with a flicker of unease.
"Parker, you have to be the only person I know who could get taken out by a light show," he joked, his voice a little too loud. He dropped the bag on the bedside table. "Figured the hospital food sucked. And brought you some reading material. You know, to keep your brain from turning to complete mush."
"Thanks, Harry," I said, managing a weak smile.
He pulled up a chair, fidgeting with the wrapper on a candy bar. "Seriously, man. When I heard... it was crazy. The whole city was going nuts. You're lucky that's all that happened." He wasn't looking at me, but at the cast on my arm. He was hiding his worry behind a wall of nervous humor, a defense mechanism I knew all too well. We were more alike than he knew.
After he left, the room fell silent again, the quiet amplifying the beat of the monitor. And then, a shadow fell across the doorway.
It was Elaine.
She lingered there for a long moment, hesitant, her slim frame silhouetted against the harsh hallway light. She clutched a book to her chest like a shield. She looked different. The easy confidence in her posture was gone, replaced by a fragile stillness. The world had unraveled for her last night, too.
Finally, she stepped inside, her footsteps soft on the linoleum. "Hey," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Hey," I replied, my heart suddenly hammering against my taped-up ribs.
She walked closer, her eyes—usually so bright and full of life—were shadowed, deep. They scanned my injuries with an unnerving intensity. "The news said... a stage rig," she said, her voice hollow. "Are you... are you okay?"
The question hung in the air, heavy with unspoken meaning. It wasn't just, 'Are your bones healing?' It was, 'Are you still whole after what we saw?'
"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be fine," I said, forcing a casualness I didn't feel. "Doctors say I've got a hard head. Lucky, I guess."
A sad, small smile touched her lips, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I was there, Peter," she said softly, her gaze unwavering. "At the show. We were right near the front when it all... started."
My blood ran cold. I knew she was there. Saving her was the only thing that had mattered in those last, desperate moments. It was her name I had whispered in the Quinjet.
"I don't know how I got out. I just... closed my eyes. And when I opened them, the wreckage was all around me, but not on me. And he was there."
"He?" I asked, my throat tight.
"Spider-Man," she breathed, the name full of awe and terror. "All I remember was listening to the concert and then he was there. Sending Husler flying right infront of me and before I knew it he was gone"
I watched her, my own memories of that moment crashing over me—the crushing weight, the scream of tearing metal, the sheer, blinding relief when I saw that she was free.
"Wow," I said, the word feeling utterly stupid and inadequate. "That's... that's crazy, Elaine. I'm just glad you're okay." I tried for a smile, a genuine Peter Parker smile, but it felt like a mask I was struggling to hold in place. "Apparently during the fight I was caught by a falling rig, I can only remember waking up here."
The lie felt enormous, a living thing in the sterile room.
Elaine didn't reply immediately. She just studied me, her gaze so intense it felt like she was performing surgery, peeling back the bandages and the lies to see the truth underneath. It was as if she could see the raw, red welts from the suit's harness under my hospital gown, or the faint outline of the spider-emblem seared into my memory. It was like she was searching for the hero she'd seen in the boy who lay broken in front of her.
My heart thudded a frantic, panicked rhythm against the monitor's steady beep. She knows. Oh god, she knows.
But then, the intensity in her eyes softened into something else—a deep, aching sadness. She let out a slow breath and reached out, her fingers gently tracing the edge of my plaster cast. Her touch was feather-light, but it sent a jolt through my entire body.
"I am, too," she whispered, finally taking my good hand in hers. Her hand was cold, but it anchored me. "I'm just so glad you're safe, Peter."
She held my hand, her thumb stroking the back of it, and we sat in silence. The hum of the machines filled the room, a soundtrack to the secrets hanging between us. She didn't press. She didn't ask any more questions. But as she looked at me, her eyes filled with a new, complicated light, I knew that the rig that had collapsed in Times Square wasn't the only thing that had fallen apart last night. Something between us had been broken, too, and replaced with a fragile, terrifying, unspoken understanding. And I had no idea how to ever put it back together.