When I see your face
There's not a thing that I would change 'cause you're amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile
The whole world stops and stares for a while
'Cause girl you're amazing
Just the way you are

Oh you know, you know, you know I'd never ask you to change
If perfect's what you're searching for then just stay the same
So don't even bother asking if you look okay, you know I'll say

Just The Way You Are, by Bruno Mars, from the album Just The Way You Are, released in 2010

Depending on how you looked at it, May's prognosis was either good or bad. Good in the sense that her memory, both short and long, we're getting better, bit by bit. But even to the positive, there was a downfall: it was unlikely that, due to her injuries, her memory would ever be the same again. She was getting on in years, was how they phrased it, and her healing abilities were slow and limited.

Peter would give anything to give her his healing abilities, but as far as they knew, they couldn't. Plus something told him he'd be in trouble with Tony if he did that. That was the positive side of the whole scenario. The negative was that... she was unlikely to walk again. When the car had crushed her legs like an apple in a squeezer, it had snapped the bones like they were twigs, had severed various nerves.

The prognosis had changed from 'having trouble to walk in the future' to 'unlikely being able to walk'. That had been a very hard day for Peter when that had been announced at the hospital and had ended with several smashed training bags, a severely bruised Sparrow and Peter, and a small homely meal made by Tony himself. That would've changed a lot of things.

If May couldn't walk, she couldn't work, and that meant no apartment. Tony had taken care of all of it though. Now he stayed at the Tower full time to make it easier on her. He went to visit her for a couple of hours each week, checking in on how she was doing, and the like.

Tony had hired the best experts in the field to try and see if they could cure her paraplegia. She was too young to even try and get her pension, so Tony subtly gave her money, knowing full well what the two of them were like when it came to being given things.

Of course, that wasn't just what was going on in the Tower. With the others having moved out, and it largely being just Tony, Sparrow, and Peter, it allowed for a close atmosphere. Tony was currently working on something called the Sokovia Accords. It was what was causing him a lot of grief and lost sleep.

Judging by what he'd heard from Tony, the whole idea was to keep them accountable for their actions and to hopefully prevent things like Ultron from ever happening again. It sounded good to Peter, and while it would need a lot of work, he was certain that Tony could do it. They needed to be held accountable, because if they weren't, then how would they know whether they had crossed a line or not? What separated them from a villain?

With great power comes great responsibility were the words that were his motto, his legacy, his words of wisdom imparted by Ben to live by, and he would stick to them as he stuck to walls. They all had great powers, both physical and mental, and if one of them were to use them for evil, then there was no telling what could happen. That was why they had to be accountable. Sparrow was very much pro-Accords as he had taken to calling them, for reasons she kept to herself.

And neither of them pried. The thing was, Tony hadn't mentioned the Accords to the other Avengers yet. The reason why was because they weren't ready yet. Tony wanted the first draft to be acceptable, before even proposing the idea. Peter was sure that Steve and the others would agree with it: after all, being held accountable sounded right up Steve's alley.

With Tony working hard on that, and often being in court, that gave him and Sparrow more time to work on JARVIS, which was taking up a significant chunk of their free time. Or at least, what little they had. He'd been surprised when Sparrow had offered to help, but he had managed to fasten the process with both of them working on it. Considering she had very little education in the art of programming, how much she picked up in such a little time was quite remarkable, and Peter wished he had that particular talent. JARVIS wasn't at operational capacity, and likely wouldn't be for a long time coming, but he was already in a much better state.

FRIDAY, despite being a baby AI, had been a big help as well. She was learning more and more every day, becoming more informal and developed with every passing day. It was endearing in a way, with the eager to please...ness?... no, attitude, of Sparrow. Of course, Peter managed to draw parallels between the two most unrelated things ever.

Presently, Peter was sitting in his room, head in the palm of his hand, as he stared at his laptop blankly. For once, he was on top of all his MIT classwork, with all his models submitted, his SI stuff finished and wrapped up, and he'd had his visit with May. Sparrow was at the Compound, doing her various activities, and Tony was in court, yet again.

Rhodey was doing more tours, Happy was.. ferrying Pepper around, he thought? And Pepper was... probably managing SI, as per usual. Does she ever get a holiday? Vision, to briefly reflect on the newest resident, was currently visiting Wanda at the Compound. And since he didn't particularly want to go spend any more time with May- God, that sounded so wrong. I meant I didn't want to spend all day with her- so he decided to go out Spider-Manning for a few hours.

He quickly went to go grab his suit from the workshop, and as he got down there, FRIDAY automatically directed the lift to go to that floor, he stood in front of his suits. Iron Spider or Normal Spider? I'm not planning to go out and get into anything worth the Iron Spider, and I haven't been in the Normal Spider for a while. Normal Spider it is.

He quickly got it out of its fancy case, before quickly stepping into it with speed, with the fabric easily going over his normal clothes- just a plain t-shirt and loose-fitting trousers. Pulling his mask over his face, Karen initialised, the whole HUD going black for a brief moment, before returning with bright colours. As he double-checked both his web canisters and his web-shooters, and double-tapped the black spider on his chest, causing his suit to tighten, Karen cheerfully greeted him.

"Good afternoon Peter."

He smiled, before heading up another couple of floors, to the nearest available floor where there would be no staff. He returned Karen's greetings with a smile within the suit. Opening the window, he leapt out, spreading his limbs wide as he dropped from the sky, the buildings of New York rushing upon him.

He extended his arms to catch the corner of a nearby building with a web, using his momentum to send him flying forward. As he hurtled through the streets of New York, he realised that he hadn't left Tony any note to do with his absence: and he couldn't phone him because he was in court yet again, this time to do with his role in Ultron. It wasn't an easy battle, but underneath his worry, Peter was sure that he'd be proven innocent

"Karen, send a text to Tony yeah? Something like 'I'm just out patrolling for a few hours, phone me if you need me'"

"Yes Peter."

He continued swinging through the city, looking for something to do. Tuning in to the Cop's radios- which may or may not be particularly legal-there was a sudden report about a fire, on a street in Harlem.

"Calculating the fastest route to the fire- take the next right."

Detaching his web, and then switching hands to connect with the adjacent building, before running along the side of the building, watching the highlighted path. Come on, come on, come on. I've got to get there. He pushed himself trying to get there, attempting to catapult himself by creating a slingshot to send him flying through the air. Ten minutes later, two minutes quicker then Karen had estimated, he flung himself into an open, unobscured window.

The smoke assaulted him as he got Karen to switch his mask to smoke filtration mode. He couldn't stay in there indefinitely, but with the filter, he could stay there a lot longer. Chest heaving, controlling his emotions and keeping himself calm, he called out an order for Karen, before announcing the second part to the burning building.

"Scan for civilians! Anybody in here?!"

There was a quiet 'mph' sound, as Peter squinted through the grey smog, that was practically fighting his air filter. Craning his hearing, trying to hear the sound again, Karen helpfully triangulated the rough location of where it was coming from. Turning towards that direction, and feeling the hint of smoke begin to trickle down his throat, he carefully parkoured over the fallen wooden posts, sliding over and under them to make it to where it was coming from.

The eyes on the suit narrowed as Peter squinted yet again to see before Karen highlighted what looked to be two figures inside what happened to be a wooden cabinet, miraculously a few meters away from being burned. The fire was flickering hungrily though, edging closer and closer, so Peter quickly made his way to it, before opening it roughly, after being assured it wouldn't explode in his face or anything.

Inside were two little kids, no older than ten, one with widened and scared red blue eyes, the other with wide tawny eyes. They were both boys, presumably siblings, and while Peter was questioning why they were in the apartment alone, that wasn't the priority right now. Looking around, quickly analysing the flames, Peter crouched down, reaching his suited hand out to the two children.

"My name's Spider-Man: Why don't we get out of this smoggy building, and see if we can find your parents."

They reached out to him, clinging to him tighter then he clung to most things. Wrapping his arms around them tightly, and listening to their coughs, he followed Karen's highlighted path to the window, outrunning the flames despite the lack of ability to web sling. Upon getting to the window, the frame hot and the glass having a shine to it despite the smoke, he kicked it open with a swift strike with his boot.

Shards of glass erupted everywhere, Peter turning to cover the children, who were coughing violently. As a beam of sunlight entered, he coughed, the smoke irritating his throat. Quickly placing the children down, he switched to his flame retardant webs, before making what was supposed to be a harness on the two kids, so he could keep his grip and lower them down safely.

He'd tested it before and it had worked fine, and by making them, it took a little more time, but it made sure the kids couldn't wriggle about and risk falling. He placed his palm on the brown-eyed kid's back, distracting him while he attached a web to his back.

"What's your name?"

"Benji, Spider-Man. That's my little brother: Joshua."

He smiled underneath his mask, edging the boy to the smashed open window. Benji pointed to the boy hiding behind Peter's leg, rocking his new harness. Once the webs were attached, he picked up Benji again, awkwardly wrapping his arm around his waist as the kid wrapped his arms tightly around his ribs. Sitting him on the edge of the window, after clearing any remaining glass, he mock whispered to Benji:

"You know how I crawl up buildings? You're about to do that. Won't that be cool? But I need you to walk really really carefully, and try not to wriggle, so the firemen at the bottom can come and reunite you with your Mommy."

Benji nodded sagely, as Peter gently leaned him back, his feet going against the brunt of the brick wall. The trick to getting kids out of super scary situations was to call it a 'game' or compare it to himself, so they don't find it so scary. It worked most, if not all of the time.

"I'll send your brother down after you. Just start walking slowly back."

Beckoning Joshua over to him, Peter poked his head out of the window, as he carefully lowered the web, Benji following his instructions exactly. The wooden floor began to creak ominously beneath him, the roaring of the fire drumming in his ears, as Peter continued to lower Benji to the bottom. Once he was within grabbing range, a fireman in a bright red suit quickly cut the webs, as Peter saw, and felt as the tension was removed.

"Now it's your turn, Joshua."

He looked nervous, which was understandable, but Peter lowered him down with quick. His Spider-Sense alerted him with all the subtlety of a drill, as leapt away from the wooden floor, just as it caved in from underneath him. Catching Joshua from his fall, Peter crawled out the window, hanging off the side as the web ran through his hands, lowering him gently to where several firefighters were waiting to catch him.

Peter took in gulps of the clean air while he could, which wasn't very long as Joshua had been caught by the nearest firefighter, the webs cut. He released them, before diving back into the building from another angle. There were still two adults missing: a woman and an elderly gentleman.

"I detect life-signs of two people matching those missing- they seem to be up one floor from you Peter, surrounded by debris."

Nodding in acknowledgement, Peter quickly but carefully parkoured over the twisted, molten hot metal rods, being careful not to brush his feet up against them, because he wasn't in the mood for a burn, thank you very much. Or molten metal coming into contact with his skin. Noticing the large hole in the wooden floor, he fired two webs up there, before climbing up them rapidly.

Looking around, coughing a little, Karen quickly scanned the building once more. The first thing to show up was the outlined figures of the two people, their heart-rates slow and their chests moving in and out slowly. Creeping along the beam, coughing as the fire enclosed around him, flaring up and making him cough once more, this time causing him to bend over, his hands on his chest.

I need to get out of here: but not without those people. Once he cleared the beam, he broke into a sprint, placing his hands on the beam in front of him, and vaulting clean over it, landing gracefully on his feet. In front of him, barely visible due to the lack of light and the cloying fog, there was a mass of wooden and concrete rubble laying there awkwardly.

Without prompting, Karen scanned for the best way to move the beams without compromising the integral structure of the building. Being trapped under a building isn't fun, especially when you don't have super-fast healing.

"Peter, if you move the diagonal cross-section, and push it into the opposing wall, it will reveal a partial hole, while also supporting the wall to your right. I don't think I need to remind you that it will be burning hot, and that the suit will not be able to resist such temperatures for long."

Peter grumbled under his breath. He hated burns as much as he hated small spaces. They were one of the longest things to heal, and funnily enough, feeling your skin shed the burned layers while simultaneously stitching together new ones is not a pleasurable experience. Moving to the side of the glowing red crossbeam, Peter placed his hands against it, the temperature allowing the metal to be malleable underneath his fingers- and not as a result of his strength.

As he carefully began to push, readjusting every so often due to Karen's watchful gaze- camera lens? What is the correct term for how she sees? How has this never come up before?- the metal was sticking to his gloves, glooping down like molten marshmallows. The smell of singing, accompanied by the flash of pain that quickly built up, assaulted Peter on top of all of the other smells that he was facing.

With one final shove, quickly removing his hand, the beam pierced through the wall, before coming to a still. Quickly smacking his burning hands against his legs in an attempt to extinguish them- it didn't work, and Peter would have A, a suit to fix, and B, probably some burns to look at later- he saw a little crook of daylight. The hole was small, far too small for anybody to climb through, so Peter had to come up with a new solution.

What if I use my webs to pull away the blockage? No, that will just cause it to collapse. Use my webs to brace it and then pull it away? No. Peter coughed again, and upon hearing the two people trapped, knew he was working against time, and it wasn't in his favour. Then again, it never did.

"Karen, run a sim. What will happen if I carefully chip away parts of the wall?"

Karen hummed, a human characteristic she'd picked up over the years of being his AI. He'd not programmed that feature into her either: no, she'd simply picked it up. Probably from him. Who am I kidding? It's definitely from me. The sim played out, and to Peter's dismay, it showed the whole wall collapsing, the room following after it, as the building buckled. The roof would fall on the two people he was trying to save, and it was highly likely Peter himself would get injured.

"And if I brace it with webs?"

The same simulation ran, but this time the wall stayed put for half a minute, before collapsing like it did before. Running the numbers himself, he knew that the half a minute would be especially tight, considering Peter had to get them out the room, not just brace a wall.

Quickly thinking about it, Peter remembered about his specially designed webs: they had held up well in Sokovia, but he hadn't tried them in this kind of conditions. Still, it was his only option, before he was reminded of the urgency of the situation as the walls around him crumbled, his lungs fighting off the smoke which was increasing in intensity.

"With my structural webs."

"We have not tested those webs with these kinds of conditions, but my calculations suggest it could buy you anything from forty-five seconds to three minutes."

Peter nodded, before switching to his structural webs, trying to not take any deep breaths in. With precision assisted only by Karen pointing out the optimum places to put them, he quickly covered the wall, before chipping at it with curled hands. Why. Is. This. Reminding. Me. Of. The. Ferry. He ground out, in time to the chipping of the wall.

Once the gap was big enough and launching himself through following Karen's cries of 'Go Peter!', he quickly picked the two people up, his strength not being tested in the least. Quickly helping the still conscious woman through the hole, he carried the man through, before picking the two of them back up and making his way to the window.

Without much fanfare, the planks of the wall collapsing behind him, the wood caving in, and the building rumbling ominously, he jumped out, grabbing onto his escape web as he lowered the three of them to the ground. Taking in gulps of air as he passed the two of them to the waiting paramedics, he quickly waved goodbye, before catapulting himself up to a nearby building: he had to take a breather before he did anything else. After all, it'd get him in trouble with Tony.

Author's Note

OH MY GOD. THE FIRST TIME I'VE EVER FORGOTTEN TO UPDATE.

I'm so sorry guys! I got sidetracked talking to a friend of mine, and well.. it actually got to about half nine this morning (I had just finished my lesson of maths) when I realised that I HADN'T GODDAMN UPDATED.

So, ignoring that, I have the answer to last weeks question. Y'know, the secret message in the letter. So, for all of those who are curious (although not curious enough to send an answer, I kid, I kid)

The secret message in the previous chapter waaas, starting from the first word on the first line to the second word on the second line, etc, 'I am safe. Finding travelling enjoyable. Next country, New Zealand. Love, Season'

With that done, I've got a crap ton of stuff to do, so to sign off, I'll suggest a QOTW.

What was something abstract that you played as a kid, that you feel like is underrated/unheard of?

For me, it was a little game called 999. Short for, 9 hours, 9 persons, 9 doors. It was a visual story game for the DS, released in 2009, which my Mum got at the same time she got me Pokemon: Soul Silver. Unfortunately, I was a little young for the game at a time... and well, it gave me nightmares. But playing it since, I've enjoyed it a lot.

Anyway, see you next time!

~Cait