Days after the homecoming dance, Peter still couldn't shake the smell of salt water and burning jet fuel that revisited him at night.
People had found glass at the beach the following Monday, after the Department of Damage Control was done cleaning up the site of the accident. Smooth hunks of black glass buried in the sand, a dark translucent purple when they were held to the light. Mr. Schrader cited the jet fuel as the cause; it burned hot enough to melt sand, he said, but Peter knew better.
Mr. Schrader put up a bounty: anyone who brought a chunk in to add to the geology class collection would be getting pizza that week and an extra point or two on the midterm. Ned was pretty stoked at the prospect of a scavenger hunt, and Peter didn't have the heart to refuse. They spent a windy afternoon combing the beach and kicking around in the cold surf. It was fun even if they came up empty handed. The tourists were gone. The shore looked bleak in the gray sunlight. Different, unscarred, not like he'd imagined.
Standing with his toes tucked in the sand, looking out across the the steely water, Peter was reminded of the place Mr. Stark had told him about, the place upriver where the bad guys got sent when they got caught. Liz's dad was there, buried somewhere under the East River, and Peter couldn't help but wish there'd been some way for him to fix it, some way they could all have won. He told himself he'd done his best.
Two weeks in, the day Liz quit cheer and Michelle cut her knuckle open on a girl's teeth, Peter had a dream where he saved the plane. Standing on the wings, he and Liz's dad worked together to tug the flaps and spoilers into position as the burning plane fell towards the lights of Luna Park. Mr. Toomes knew what to do, and Peter wasn't afraid. They trimmed and adjusted the wings on the way down, shouting back and forth over the roar of wind, coordinating their efforts. They worked well together as a team, the way he sometimes wished he and Mr. Stark could, but never had.
They managed to guide the jet down to a safe stop along the beach, paint barely scuffed, the crates inside unharmed, and Mr. Toomes walked away. Millions of dollars' worth in the cargo hold, millions of dollars he'd been willing to kill for, and he just walked away from all of it, leaving Peter to wait for Happy and Mr. Stark.
Mr. Stark gave him a lift back to school. Everyone else had left, but he found Liz sitting out front on the steps under the homecoming banner. She was waiting for her dad, looking so beautiful and lonely, a fairytale character out of time. He was afraid to face her, but his heart tugged him up those steps to sit by her side.
When he told her he was sorry, and he came clean and bared all his secrets to her—Spider-Man and Peter Parker and everything else—all of it spilling out in a rushed tumble of words, so many fragile truths spoken so quickly it left him shaking when he finally ran out of pieces of himself to give, she gave him a quiet look of understanding, and hushed him with a kiss. He woke up feeling sick with regret.
Some nights, he relived the terror of the crash. The loss of control. The stomach drop of the fall, the wing that sheared through the Parachute Jump like paper. Glitching panels torn out by the Vulture's claws as he and Peter clung to the side of the jet, everything gushing smoke, everything gone wrong, his cries caught by the rush of air across his face that left him breathless, and seeing the ground come up below them too fast, too close, only to wake up a second before they rammed the flat black water. Some nights, he drowned in the icy water of the bay.
There were better dreams. The quiet minutes after the fight that his mind played back in blurry afterimages. That first sweet sip of cold air after the choking smoke, the solitude of the long walk home through the streets of a sleeping city, with a warm bed waiting at the end of it all.
Hell was a burning pit in Coney Island. The beach lit up as bright as day, black glass strewn like stars across the sand, each reflecting flame. Broken metal sheeting twisting up out of the ground. The overpowering push of heat off the skeletal plane. The smoke wasn't a smell, it was a gritty liquid in his throat, and it cut all the way down his windpipe with every breath.
A troubling wind carried Peter forward through the field of leaning headstones, one foot after the other, taking him down through the hot sand to the heart of the pit. The strange black glass grew in tall spears around the hole. The sand seemed to glow from within, lit by flame and heat and voices from deep below. He stepped around a six foot shard and into the shade of a creaking wing to catch his breath. Dread welled up inside him. He knew what he had to do, but he didn't want to see. He was afraid of what he'd find. A crisp, shrunken torso lying silent in the wreckage, or a charred dying thing reaching for him with brittle, blackened arms, crying for water.
He found the Vulture hunched at the bottom. He mistook it for glass at first, its wings slotted together and locked tight, the rugged metal surface a dull black in the light of the flames. It was towering and featureless, a hooded church grim. Alien. Silent. It looked like it had always been there. Peter called out to it, and in a howl of scraping metal, the Vulture stood and spread his wings. A man with a metal face and metal wings, all flesh and blood underneath. He wasn't sure why he'd been expecting a monster.
Peter squared up, bit down so hard his jaw ached. It was all happening too quickly. He wanted to run and get help, but there was nowhere to go. The Vulture turned, saw Peter standing there, ready to fight him. He motioned for Peter to come closer, and when he did, the Vulture looked him up and down and laughed at him. With a jolt of panic, Peter realized his costume was in shreds, filthy, the little spider he'd painstakingly drawn on the hoodie in marker disfigured and covered in soot. His mask had come off. He looked like a joke.
The distorted bark of laughter died down to a chuckle and a shake of the Vulture's helmeted head. That. That explains so much. But that's just sad, kiddo. What are you doing? Why pretend to be something you're not? You think that ridiculous costume makes you a man?
Peter went numb all over, a hot weight clenching around his heart, the breath knocked out of him. The Vulture had seen. He knew Peter's secret, and now everyone would know. They were all going to be talking about him at school. Penis Parker, the spider weirdo. If he died here tonight, this was how he'd be remembered. A wannabe Avenger. A failure. A freak.
The urge to run seized him, just run blind like a terrified bolting animal until he couldn't run anymore, and he didn't feel humiliated or terrified or anything at all, until he was so lost no one would ever find him. He didn't want to fight the Vulture. He didn't want to be here. Shaking, he flung his arm out to shoot web, but the fluid sizzled and burned to steam. The Vulture stood there, staring. Feeling sorry for him.
Peter lost his nerve. He broke into a stumbling run, tripped in the steep sand and landed hard on his arm. Pain shot up to his shoulder, but he pushed up, kept going. He had to get out of the choking heat, had to get away. He couldn't breathe. He didn't hear the Vulture move. A black wing snapped out and smacked him to the ground.
Before he could get up, the wing sliced down at his chest and the feathers sank deep into the sand, stopping just short of cutting him apart. They pinned him to the ground. The Vulture lurched over him, his bright eyes burning green. You should've stayed down, kid. Fire had swallowed half of the Vulture's body. It ate away at the leather jacket, but the Vulture didn't flinch.
You're on fire, Mr. Toomes, Peter said. He sounded stupid and scared, and the Vulture planted one heavy boot across his chest and pushed his weight down into him until his ribs felt like they were going to tear apart.
Go on, the Vulture told him. Cry for help like a little girl. Cry for Tony Stark to save you.
Peter tried. His voice came out shaky. Weak. The burning air hurt his lungs. He couldn't muster the breath to scream. He wanted to scream—God, he wanted to. He wanted this to be over. He wanted to go home. To forget everything he'd seen and hide in the top bunk in his room and disappear forever, and he knew if he could just yell loud enough, if he could just hold on long enough, Mr. Stark would come, and he'd take him home and make everything right again, but Peter couldn't move, couldn't pull in enough air, couldn't breathe, couldn't make a sound—
I can't breathe, he said. He started to cry, struggling blindly, panicked. He heard a bone snap in his chest. You're pushing down on me. It's too much— Let me go— please let me go I can't breathe I'm going to die help me please I'm going to die— Standing over him, the Vulture calmly watched him asphyxiate.
The smoke filled sky was empty, the stars looming too bright over New York City. Mr. Stark wasn't coming. No one was coming to save him. The Vulture stared into his eyes in silence as the flames cooked both of them alive.
Peter woke in the dark of the top bunk. Tangled up in the sheets, soaked in sweat, his frantic heart thudding under his shirt. He couldn't bring himself to move. He could still feel the Vulture's weight on his chest, the heat of the flames on his skin. The cold dread of certainty.
He knows. Everyone knows.
He squeezed his eyes shut, slowly counted to ten. He could hear Aunt May moving around in the apartment, getting dressed, and the Goldsteins talking next door over breakfast. Ms. Queenie's laughter, bright even through the walls. Then, the warm smell of coffee and bacon coming from the kitchen. It was Friday, the day of the hearing—
No. Let's try that again. It was Friday, the day of the field trip to Virginia, with the weekend to look forward to after that—a sleepover at Ned's and marathoning movies together till midnight—and Halloween in two weeks, followed by the much anticipated science conference. Homecoming had been nearly a month ago. It was over. Mr. Stark promised he'd never have to testify. He would never have to see the Vulture again.
In one deft move, Peter slid out of bed and swung into the bottom bunk, shuffling himself into the corner. He grabbed his phone, scrolled through his messages. Nothing from Tony, nothing from Happy. Three from Ned, none from Liz, one from Mr. Schrader reminding everyone not to be late. A handful of YouTube comments. 100k face reveal? I want the Spi-D. Where's the Vulture fight video? Where are you? We miss you! RIP LOL.
Aunt May at the door. "Hey, sleepyhead. Breakfast's ready."
"Coming," Peter called back.
When he was done getting dressed, he reached for his phone and fumbled it under the bed. It had skittered across the carpet and stopped against the takeout bag with Mr. Stark's present, which sat next to a battered box marked "RPG STUFF". Inside was his original costume, folded and hidden under his rulebooks. Peter pulled it out. The costume was charred, sand encrusted. The goggles were cracked. The fabric felt gritty in his hands, patches of it stiff and dark with blood. It stank of smoke and diesel.
Peter's chest felt tight all of a sudden. He stuffed the costume back in the box and shoved it under the bed, and went out to join Aunt May in the kitchen.
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