PREVIOUSLY, ON AFTERMATH:
"So what's the name, buttface?"
"I call myself Tombstone, but you can call me whatever you want, since it's the last name you'll ever call!"
He planted a solid kick to the side of Tombstone's ugly face, then another punch to the gut through a thick layer of webbing.
Peter placed his foot on his chest, and looked down at him. "So, what is it that you wanted from me?"
"Revenge," Tombstone roared, breaking free of the webbing and grabbing Peter's ankle.
Peter managed another half-hearted webbing to the pale blue face before he was swung into a metal beam. His head, still tender from the last beating this man had given him, hit the dirty snow. The impact wasn't bad, but it still made him dizzy. As a consequence, he could not possibly have gotten up, and Tombstone's hold on his leg was allowed to continue.
On his feet again, with snow and shreds of webbing hanging from his clothes, and his skin the unnatural color it was, Tombstone looked like some ghost straight out of a storybook.
Peter shut his eyes as he felt a tug on his leg again. Moments later, he landed on a pile of PVC pipes, which proceeded to roll off in all directions.
At that moment, the snow began falling.
Great. Blindy-slippery cold stuff. It's just what I need, really. He shuddered as he pulled himself to his feet painfully slow. Tombstone rushed him as a streak of pale blue and white.
Plan. Think of a plan. This guy will outlast me, and with this stinking cold, that won't take long. I need a plan.
He put out his fist just before Tombstone hit him, and he fell onto his back. Every knuckle on his hand cracked under the force, and he wasn't sure whether or not a few fingers weren't in the wrong place.
He didn't have too much time to worry about it, so his flung his hand around a few times and webbed to the metal skeleton of a structure on the site.
I can't keep him down. He must have been running ten miles an hour and took my fist to the face and he's getting up already! Peter flung around his stinging hand again. Can't leave him. He'll hurt bystanders and tear things apart senselessly. Think, Peter. C'mon. The cold isn't effecting him, I can't seem to hurt him, my webbing doesn't hold him... He jumped onto the roof of a crane as Tombstone came for him once again. It was easier to replace a crane than the half of a block the structure would crush if it fell, not to mention how many of the people watching the fight would be killed.
Peter met him on the ground, blocking the fist coming toward his stomach and bringing the heel of his hand up into Tombstone's chin. His head was flung back, and there was a large crack, but he just rolled his shoulders and grinned at Peter before throwing another punch.
The only thing on Peter's side was the fact that he was very uncoordinated, and angry. The man moved fast and hit hard, but he obviously had no formal training.
He took several steps back, until he hit a concrete wall, then continued walking up it backwards. Tombstone was left to jump and reach in vain as Peter simply stood there, arms crossed.
"Can't we just talk this out like normal men? Be civil?"
Tombstone only growled.
"No Tomby, with words!"
He began beating at the concrete with nothing but his fists, and made a decent sized hole.
No cuts, no bleeding... What is this guy?
"Okay! Looks to me like you could use a little anger management," Peter muttered. "Why do you want revenge? What's you're real name?"
Tombstone didn't stop beating the wall even as he forced out these words, "I won't tell you until I have your neck in my hands! I'm gonna tell you right before I snap your neck!"
Peter took several steps back on the wall, partially from surprise. He asked himself again what he could have done to this man to make him so bent on revenge. "Can't this wait?" The wall began to crumble as Tomstone's hole created thin cracks through the whole thing, and his Spidey-Sense told him to get out of there. "It's Christmas Eve! Don't you have a family to see?" Tombstone halted his beating on the wall, and Peter knew he had the man's full attention. "I have a family! They expect me to show up for Christmas dinner alive. Not to mention, friends, people that need my protection." Peter took a step down, crouching near Tombstone's level. "Can we make a truce? Until the day after Christmas, then you can try to snap my neck all you want. Just today and tomorrow."
Tombstone stared right into his eyes, despite the tinted lenses on Peter's mask. He gave that sharp-toothed grin of his, and put his fist in the concrete. Peter's breath caught in his throat. His Spidey-Sense was screaming, and it took all of his willpower not to comply.
"I hope your family won't miss you too much."
Peter tried to jump, but at the same time Tombstone pulled his fist out of the wall, he drove his other fist into Peter's ribcage.
Before he was knocked unconscious, the last thing he was aware of was one scream among all the other spectators. A scream that stood out, because he knew to whom it belonged. Before he could pin down a name and a face, he was completely buried.
"Boys, cut it out," Gwen snapped. Her little brothers immediately stopped their bickering, just as their sister had asked. A few months ago, they would have disregarded her and continued their argument somewhere else, but recently, things had been different. Gwen was the acting second parent in the house, with her father gone.
Gwen walked back into the kitchen, where she had been standing over three of her mother's old cookbooks. The books were worn and most of the pages were crinkled and covered in age-old food, a sign of much use. Like any other year, all of her mother's side of the family would be coming around for Christmas dinner in less than twenty-four hours. Unlike any other year, though, Gwen's mother wasn't functioning like she normally would around a holiday. She was easily worn out, with the lack of sleep she was suffering from, and she didn't have her father to help with cooking and the boys. It was all down to her, all weighing on her shoulders, and Gwen was waiting for her to buckle.
With all that in mind, Gwen sought out the cook books she knew her mother frequently used on the holidays to help plan the meal. With much gentle prodding, she had gotten her mother to sit down with her and make a list of things they would need to cook the extensive dinner, and she was currently at the store retrieving such items.
"Gwen!" Howard, the oldest of her brothers, shouted. "Spider-Man at two o'clock!"
She rushed to the window and looked across the street just in time to see the red and blue suit go off in another direction.
Howard was the only brother who knew what had really gone down that night with the lizard. At thirteen years old, her mother and her had decided he could handle the truth of what happened while Phillip and Simon remained ignorant. Having already been a fan of Spider-Man despite his father's previous opinions, his admiration for Peter and his alter-ego had only doubled with the information.
"Baddie in the street," he said, jabbing a finger at the cold glass of the window.
Gwen made a face at what little of the "baddie", as her brother called him, looked like. His skin almost looked blue from the thirtieth floor up. "Ever seen him before?"
"Nope. Is he... blue?"
Gwen squinted. "Yeah, yeah I think so." She read the channel off the news van in the street, which was speeding away to follow Spider-Man, and ran to the television to turn it on. It had gone to commercial.
Wavering on indecision for a moment, Gwen closed her eyes. "Howard, watch Phillip and Simon. Take my phone, go to Phillip's room, and do not leave it unless the carpet spontaneously bursts into flame, got it?"
Howard took the cellphone and nodded. "Don't get hurt." He knew he couldn't stop his sister from following him, and he honestly didn't want to, but the least she could do was promise she would return safely.
She hugged him briefly before running to her room to get her boots and coat.
Gwen halted in her doorway, a bright red ribbon on her windowsill having stopped her. She blinked slowly a few times, then cautiously made her way to the window. Frost caused it to be a pain to open, but open it she did. With shaking fingers, she turned over the label taped to the box underneath the bow.
To Gwen, from Peter. Do NOT open until Christmas. Please.
She knew that handwriting. It was unmistakably Peter Parker, from the overdone cross on the little t, to the deep slant that came from always rushing.
Pulling the window shut with a bang, she set the present aside. Her curiosity to what was going on with him at that moment was just about going to kill her.
The trail of news reporters was easy to follow, and led her right to where a fight was apparently going down. Shoving her way through the crowd of spectators, she strained to hear anything other than reporters talking. Peter's mangled voice was the only thing she could hear, until she fought her way to the front.
He stood on a wall, looking down at the man (who was very definitely pastel blue) who was beating on the wall. He said something that caused the man to stop, and only then could Gwen hear him.
"I have a family! They expect me to show up for Christmas dinner alive. Not to mention, friends, people that need my protection." Peter took a step down, crouching on the wall. "Can we make a truce? Until the day after Christmas, then you can try to snap my neck all you want. Just today and tomorrow."
There was a horrifying moment, where all they did was state at each other. Even from the distance she watched from, she could see Peter trembling all over. Then, the blue man pulled put his fist in the wall, and withdrew. Peter, Spider-Man, was crushed underneath the nine foot tall, four foot thick concrete wall.
"No!" Gwen shrieked. She threw herself forward to begin digging him out before the dust had even settled, but the people surrounding her clung to her. As the blue man ran away, she spewed a profanity at him that her father certainly would have washed her mouth out for saying.
Unable to pull away from the people around her, Gwen flopped to the ground on her knees, sobbing. She was sure other bystanders thought her some crazy fangirl of his, when in all reality, he was one of the only two men she had ever loved.
The crowd began clearing out after a few moments, and she was finally free to pull at the mound of rubble in a vain attempt to get him out.
Her actions seemed to spark something in other people, because slowly, others came to help dig the hero out. Alone, her endeavor might have been hopeless, but with almost ten other people, the pile of rubble didn't seem so big.
Fingers were numb with cold and red with blood, but they kept digging until they found a hand. The fire department arrived, and the digging continued, but with Gwen and her valiant helpers standing to the side.
Gwen anxiously bit her fingernails as they dug carefully. And when they pulled his broken body out gently, she almost couldn't bear to look. His suit was torn and shreds hung off his body, and in a few placed, hair matted with blood stuck out on his head.
"Peter..." she whimpered.
They laid him out on a gurney, then rolled him into an ambulance.
"Wait," she cried, rushing toward the ambulance before the doors were shut. "You can't- his identity!"
One man restrained her, within sight of Peter, while they pulled his mask up to his nose and put an oxygen mask over his face.
"It's okay," the guy behind her said gently. "We won't expose his identity. Do you know him?"
"Yes."
"You can come to the hospital with us if you like. I'll explain on the way."
Gwen nodded as the doors to the ambulance shut. Peter Parker... Don't you die.
They climbed into the front of the ambulance and he flipped on the sirens, before he began speeding through New York traffic.
Author's Note's
This chapter physically pained me to write in places. I'm sorry. And YES! The plot will continue to develop rapidly after this chapter, even though it doesn't look like it will.
and, this is the last chance to give me your ideas for Gwen's gift! Leave me your reviews, because I love them. :)