The Hopeful
Chapter 2: Hope for the People
Hell was surrounding Peter. Fallen bricks and collapsing supports really hit point how close the building was to falling. A part of the ceiling fell right in front of Peter, dust sneaking past his raised arms and into his eyes. Tears started to swell in his eyes as Peter forced himself to keep them open. He was stumbling around, lifting up debris and looking around corners.
He heard a girlish scream from the next room. Peter's Spider-Sense rang out and he burst through the wall. Drywall and ash surrounded him as he plowed into the room. Several loud collapsing sounds signaled the wall collapsing. His Spider-Sense intensified and he looked towards where it was directing him. A small cowering girl was in the corner of the room ash coloring her hair and clothes black.
The flames slowly crackled as Peter's senses went into overdrive. The taste of ash making his mouth bitter, his nose was being suffocated with smoke, the heat was roaring at his skin. Peter's attention was caught by a small crack on the ceiling slowly moving to the girl. The building was going to collapse on them and they needed to get out. Peter rushed forwards jumping around the fire.
He kneeled before the girl and tore off a piece of his shirt. He moved it to cover the little girl's mouth. The girl frantically swatted at his hand. Peter raised his voice above the fire and gently spoke to the girl,"Hey, hey, don't worry. I'm here to rescue you"
He tried covering her mouth once again and she reluctantly took the cloth. Still her eyes were filled with fear and doubt. Her voice whimpered," M-mister, what about Mommy and Daddy? They won't wake up"
Peter's heart broke a little. He looked over at the corner opposite to them and there were a couple of bodies that were burning. He looked back at the girl and Peter's mouth was dry, words refusing to answer the poor girl. He had similar experiences in his past needing to comfort little kids in grief, but that had never included directly telling the kids that their parents were dead.
They had to hurry though the building would collapse soon. Peter's words were shaky as he tried to comfort the child,"Umm… Mommy and Daddy are in a better place now."
God, it was terribly cliche, but it was his best right now. The girl's eyes brimmed with tears and she coughed,"W-why did they leave without me?"
"They had an important job." The building shook and another part of the ceiling fell," Hey, little miss can we talk outside, it's getting a little stuffy in here?" The little lady raised her soot-covered arms, ready to be picked up. Peter swooped her up and ran over to the window. The glass had shattered and the frame was broken too. Peter grit his teeth as he grabbed the window, shards of glass cutting into his hand. He pulled back and the window was removed from the wall. A hole was now big enough for the little girl was now there.
Peter formed his hands into devil horns and spun a rope for her to crawl down. He looked to the girl,"You have to trust me okay? Just hold onto the rope and only let go when the big people at the bottom tell you to."
Peter gently lifted her through the hole and down to the firefighters below. Now he had gotten the girl out, but another couple had been crying out for a boy. He still had some searching to do. His Spider-Sense rang out a second before the floor collapsed beneath him. He fell down a floor and a piece of wood went through the side of his abdomen. Peter's senses blocked themselves from overload and the last thing Peter remembered was the ceiling from a story up collapsing causing a whole floor to fall on him.
Everything went black.
Steve Rogers was a relatively simple man, "Just a kid from Brooklyn" as he would say. After being the Guinea pig for Project Rebirth and serving his country for many years he would like nothing more to sit down and retire. That was the plan for a while, but that plan didn't take into account Gods, Monsters, Aliens, and a bunch of other nonsense that defied good ole common sense.
Several of the alien ships raced by overhead firing into the buildings, more specifically it's supports. They must be looking to cause as much casualties as possible. Steve raised his hand to signal the other Avengers of this development. He was rudely interrupted when he had to roll under a blue beam. From what he could see it was similar to HYDRA's old weapons and if the Cube was in Loki's possession this could be true.
Cap looked over to where the shot had come from and saw three of the menacing aliens there. Not one to waste time, he had already done enough of that, he vaulted over a car before rushing towards the small group. He weaved through the blasts blocking the few that came to close. Another beam raced towards him, this one was directly on target with the super soldier's head. He raised the iconic shield just in time and he was pushed back a few inches. The expected onslaught was instead a couple of strangled gasps. Cap looked behind his shield to see that the alien now had a gaping hole in it's chest. From what Steve could gather he had reflected the energy back into the alien's chest.
Cap took advantage of the distraction and threw his shield at the remaining aliens. The shield knocked both of them in the head before returning to his hand. He searched his surroundings this time before attempting to contact the Avengers once again," Team, it appears that the enemy is trying to bring down buildings. There's been a few with bombs so be quick and careful."
Shortly after a scream came from a nearby building. As Cap ran towards it more and more details became apparent. First off, this was likely going to be a fire rescue mission. The fire was covering every possible inch and just from that alone it should have collapsed. Second, was the immense crowd surrounding it. All of them were covered in soot and their hair tinged with light gray ash. They must have been able to escape before it was too late. Now the only question was why they were all staying behind to look at it.
Steve ran up to the group and tapped a young woman on the shoulder,"Excuse me, Ma' you mind telling me what's the problem?"
The young woman's face was filled with shock. Obviously she was a little starstruck, but that wasn't going to help him. Before the young woman could answer, he felt a tug on his shield. Steve looked down and a little girl was pulling on it trying to get his attention. He kneeled before the child and listened,"Mister Peter is in there, he helped everyone get away from the big bad fires"
"Thank you, little miss. I'll try to save this Mister Peter. He sounds like a good guy" Steve stood up and looked back at the woman who finally seemed to regain her composure."Do you know what floor he is on?"
"H-he was on the fifth floor when he rescued me, but little Zoey was saved on the eighth floor."
So, this man was making his way up through the apartment complex saving people. That made him a good man in Steve's book. He wasted no time and rushed into the building. Immediately the intense heat singed at his exposed face and sweat started to pour from under his costume. Using his shield to block himself from the worst parts of the fire he rushed up the stairs. He must have stepped on a weak point because the the whole stairway below the third floor had collapsed under the flames.
The war veteran grimaced before continuing up,careful not to make any more missteps. As Cap reached the sixth floor he started to hear heavy grunts and mild screams come from down the hall. Cap rushed through through the hallway before arriving near the end of the hallway. The door was a bright red and had the numbers '616' printed onto the front of it. The handle was melted and wouldn't budge when he tried to twist it. Cap kicked down the door and now Steve felt like he owed Fury another 10 bucks.
There was a unconscious boy laying on the ground covered in dirt, ash and generally looking very dirty. He had a large shirt covering his body likely giving him a small amount of protection. But, that was a cliche even back when in his day. No, the part that gave him surprise was something amazing.
A shirtless brunette man standing above the little boy holding up the roof of the room muscles were straining and his body had clearly sustained injury with it's numerous scars and bruises. Steve could tell that this man was obviously two things, a superhuman and "Mister Peter".
He ran over to Mister Peter and even before he could get a word out the man's commanding tone rang out,"Don't worry about me boy scout. Just get the boy out and I can escape"
Steve was about to object before he looked into the man's eyes. Steve's mom had always been one for quotes often going as far to use them in casual conversation. Steve had taken on this habit in his younger years and kept it going in his older ones. One seemed especially fitting for this man "The eyes are windows into the soul", his eyes screamed determination and experience greater than even Steve's.
Steve barely even hesitated before heaving the boy over his shoulder careful to keep the shirt, obviously Mister Peter's, over his mouth. Before he left Steve looked back at the man, doubt in his eyes that the man would survive. Chocolate brown eyes meet bright blue and the message was clear 'I'm not done living yet, so don't place any bets against me'. Actually it was his cocky smirk that told that last part, but it all told the same thing.
Steve rose his fingers and saluted Peter. He rushed out of the building with the little boy, dodging collapsing beams and roaring fires. He jumped down the broken stairwell making sure not to drop the boy. Cap had quickly deposited the boy into a crying parent's arms before looking for the young lady from earlier.
She was in the back of the crowd a look of horror on her face. Steve pushed towards the girl, he heard the sounds of explosions around the block signaling the alien invasion was still happening. A series of 'excuse me's' came out of the man's mouth as he made his way to the girl. Tears had already started to pour and sniffles were following soon after. Steve looked down at the woman."Ma'am, I'm in a hurry and I must ask you to do me a favor, if this Mister Peter survives tell him to go to Stark Tower and ask for Steve Rodgers"
"W-w-what? He's alive?"
Her question wouldn't be answered as he ran off towards the sounds of battle and explosions.
Man, he hadn't pushed himself this far in years. The building gave a deep groan as several crashes from the upper floor. Another couple hundred pounds of debris added to the already uncomfortable feeling on his shoulders. Peter shifted ever so slightly allowing himself some balance. He gave the collapsed ceiling a tiny push to test the waters(or maybe flames was more fitting) and from what he could tell he had about 30 tons of building on his back.
More of the complex most have collapsed than he thought because 30 tons was not the expected weight. This presented a new predicament, Peter wasn't sure if his silent vow to the captain would be fulfilled, but that wasn't going to stop him from trying. He hadn't been exactly truthful with the super soldier. Peter could easily escape under normal standards, even with the extra 30-ton challenge, but he had the extra problem of retrieving all of his stuff too.
Typical Parker Luck. Making sure that out of all of the buildings in Manhattan to catch fire was the one place where he was lying low. S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn't be stupid enough to try and murder him in the middle of an alien invasion would they? Who was he kidding? Of course they would! They were a group of spies and assassins after all.
Still, no matter if it was agents or aliens that caused the fire he needed to get his stuff out of here ASAP. Some of his experiments could easily devastate the block and those were some of the weaker ones.
Peter heard another crash, this time below him. The wooden floor splintered under his feet and fire raged against his slowly blistering skin, which regenerated fast enough for the burns to not do anything above a first-degree burn. "And of course it all takes place in the middle of an alien invasion" he grunted out the words as he readied himself.
Fortunately, his equipment was already packed into a dufflebag ready for a quick swiping. Peter's eyes tracked where he would go. First stop was the bag, then he could either make a run for it or use his webs to hold up the ceiling. Peter didn't get a chance to think it over before his Spider-Sense hit him like a truck. The floor gave away and the world slowed to a crawl.
The flames gently flickered in the air and small splinters flew with the embers in the air. Gravity took a gentle hold on Peter's body as the floor started to float on down. He lurched forward, the ceiling began to fall down almost feather-like in motion behind him. Peter let his Spider-Sense guide his every action down to his breathing. He flipped over a flying plank and slid under a cluster of bricks. Using his unnatural agility he completed several more complicated maneuvers dodging the peaceful destruction surrounding him.
He shifted the focus of his Spider-Sense to gather his dufflebag(stupid thing was only focused on making sure he survived, tsk tsk). He lifted the bag over his shoulder and kept on moving around the floating debris. Peter stood in front of the window leading to his escape and looked back at his destroyed room,"Twas a beautiful relationship while it lasted, may you rest in peace faithful servant"
He let loose a small smirk as his corny goodbye before leaping out the window and to safety.
*Chuckles nervously* Haha, soooo how have you been? Oh...you've been expecting an update for a whole year now? It's been a whole year, man does time fly! Anyways, I'm not going to make any excuses(because I have none), but I'm going to instead tell you why I returned.
When I started this story it was more out of curiosity to where it might lead. What it lead to was several reviews(thank you!) and a lot of anxiety that I couldn't live up to my own expectations of how awesome this story should be. So, I started to pick apart my writing and get a better sense of writing. Let's just say that I had my own little training trip in the arts of plot-fu.
I just hope you all enjoy my improvements, my whole last chapter was a mess of exposition about 400 words long. Since his whole backstory was essentially revealed I decided to add a little mystery to the character. So, Peter has been in the MCU for a whole five years and a lot has happened in that time. My goal is to keep you guessing.
Another goal is to keep updating this regularly,but there might be a slight bump in the road. I have other stories that I am equally interested in updating, so this might take a while before it will be updated again. Also you should go check out those stories(not-so-subtle wink and nudge).
Till next time! Hope you enjoyed!
~Sage Out~
