Chapter 8

The next week past quickly, with Ali being able to leave the med bay and took every opportunity to walk around as she could, though, of course, everyone tried to get her to rest and sit down. Jemma came to check on her during the week and Daisy came over to make sure she was okay.

Peter saw her when ever he could which wasn't a lot though Ali did manage to teach him about the vents and how not to get lost in them. This made it easier for the two to see each other but even then they only saw each other two more times before Wednesday when Ali was returning to school.

Maya was of course told everything over either the phone or when Maya came to her house which was practically every other day. The two giggled about what had happened between her and Peter as well as try and decipher what it all meant.

By Wednesday Ali was relieved that she was finally going to be able to go back to school. She was still going to have to take her medicine but had already cleared it with her teachers so that she was allowed to leave her 3rd lesson of the day in order to take them.

With all the hovering and constant concern Ali woke up early that Wednesday and packed her bag excitedly for school before taking some pain medication which her mum had already laid out for her. Almost everyone was up when Ali walked into the kitchen. The only one who wasn't was Wanda and that was because she had been worrying through out the night and had over exhausted her powers.

There were two parts of the agreement that Ali had had to agree to in order to be allowed to go back to school. The first thing was that she had to have a wheelchair for at least the first three days of school though Ali managed to quickly change that to crutches. The second was that somebody would drop her off and pick her up each day from school until Jemma deemed her fully healed. Of course Ali then managed to convince everyone to pick Maya up along the way.

That was why, that morning, Natasha handed Ali her crutches before grabbing her bag and walking to the elevator were she waited for Ali to catch up.

Ali sighed but made her way over to the elevator using the crutches. She had to admit though that the crutches did help.

Once in the car, Ali sat in the back in order to be able to talk to Maya easily when they picked her up.

It wasn't long before both girls had reached the front gate of the school. Maya said thank you too Natasha while Ali simply responded with a see you later and a smile.

"Soo..."

Ali shot her a confused look.

"How did you convince them to let you come back? I thought for sure that you wouldn't be coming back until next week and that even then they would make you have a wheel chair."

"They tried but they promised that if I actually did have a week of bed rest then they would let me come back in today. I don't think they actually expected me to do it though."

At that they both giggled.

The day passed pretty uneventfully though Ali did receive a lot of stares and interested looks as well as a few questions though Maya's glare made them all backtrack and disappear. Maya helped when ever she could though if she saw that Peter was near them then she may have pretended to not notice Ali struggling so that he would come over and help her. This happened quite a few times much to her delight especially during Geography when the two sat next to one another.

A week or two passed and Ali was out of the crouches though Peter continued to help her when ever he could and Maya started to develop a theory.

All the teachers had recently made new seating plans and in almost all of the classes that Peter and Ali shared they had been sat together. Ali didn't agree with this theory but Maya just deemed her as in denial.

Soon a month had gone by and Ali's last week of having to have the medicine came around.

She had one more day left when everything seemed to fall into place but also go terribly wrong.

It all started on a Saturday morning. All the Avengers were down in the training rooms having a group training session to woke on tack tics and working as a team. Ali knew that Peter was down in Tony's lab and had planned to go down and see him in a few minutes but that all went down the drain pretty quickly.

Ali had just been sitting on the sofa in the living room eating a packet of crisps and watching some TV on her tablet when she heard footsteps.

These were heavy footsteps and were made people wearing big heavy boots. She could make out that there were 6 separate people none of which she knew.

She quickly and quietly slipped behind the couch and out of view from the elevator which they had just stepped out of.

Almost as soon as she had done this the power went out effectively trapping her on this floor since the elevator was the only way down or up unless you managed to scale up the side of the building.

None of the Avengers would be able to make it up here in time and she had no where to hide. She was basically a sitting duck.

All these things left her only one option; to fight.

Peter had been working in the lab when the power went out. He could see better in the dark than most thanks to his powers but that didn't do anything to shake his unease.

Neither did the bullet that came wizzing past his head not 2 seconds later.

It took him a total of 30 seconds to disarm the two attackers that had made their way into the lab. He quickly tied them up before sliding the guns across the lab so that the attackers couldn't grab them but so that they could still be used for evidence if it was needed.

After this had been done his thoughts immediately turned to Ali.

He knew that she was up in the Avengers penthouse but had no idea if she was alone or not though he knew if only two attackers had been sent to the labs then these people weren't looking for gear or to steal Tony's ideas. They were instead, probably looking for a hostage so Ali was almost definitely not going to be alone but not exactly have friendly company with her either.

Without thinking or carrying about his identity being exposed, Peter broke the window closest to him with a small bomb that he quickly put together from what he had been working on and jumped out of the window before he started to scale up the building as quickly as he could to the penthouse floor.

Ali had waited until one of the attackers legs was right in front of her face to make her first move. She decided that stealth was best for this.

She grabbed the man's leg and pulled as hard as she could. This sent the man tumbling to the floor though didn't knock him out and just left him a bit winded.

Before she could completely knock him out one of the other attackers started shooting.

It was clear that he had no idea where she was so she crawled across the room by hiding behind the sofas. She stopped when she was right behind the man that was shooting and stood up before delivering a kick to his head which allowed her to disarm him and grab the gun.

After doing this she slid back to where she had been originally behind the sofa.

A few more shots rang out but from an entirely different part of the living room. These shots were a little to close for comfort so Ali had to quickly spring up from behind the sofa and grab the attacker's thumb before pulling the gun out of his hands.

By this point the three attackers had seen her and it became a three on one fight. They had all been disarmed of their guns so that made the fight less risky. Even so she still ended up getting punched and kicked but she got way more attacks in than they did.

By the time that she had knocked two out of the three unconscious she heard a window open but she didn't have much time to think about that as the last three attackers who had disappeared down the corridor had come back and had seen her.

She abandoned her attempts to knock the last disarmed guy out and instead ducked behind one of the sofas for cover.

The shots weren't getting any closer which was good so she decided to stay exactly where she was until they had to reload.

About 5 seconds later though the attackers moved away from her to target something else.

Ali popped her head up only to be stunned at what she saw. One of the shooters had been tied up in this sort of web though he was very much still conscious. The other two continued to shoot but it was clear that they had no idea what they were shooting at or where it was in the room.

She waited but continued to survey the scene when not 4 seconds later she felt someone next to her.

Immediately she through a punch to where the person was on her right but the person next to her caught her hand and held it.

"Shhh, it's me."

"Peter you shouldn't be up here! You could get hurt!"

It was a whisper shout but the attackers were still shooting so didn't hear them.

Peter looked at her with a confident look,

"I can handle myself but you need to stay here."

"And watch you get shot? I don't think so."

Peter sighed. He really wanted to keep Ali safe but how on Earth was he meant to do that without having to prove first that he could handle himself and that meant revealing his identity. Honestly at this point he would do anything to keep her safe so he turned to her but she was already gone.

While Peter had been in a world of his own Ali had managed to crawl around the back of the sofa and leap on one of the attackers. This knocked the gun out of his hands.

Before the other two shooters could start shooting at her Peter leapt up from behind the sofa and grabbed one of the other shooters guns and destroyed it by crushing it with his hand. He then delivered a punch to the guys face which knocked him out.

Ali had watched the whole thing from the corner of her eye and was shocked though not as shocked as she thought that she should be. To her it made sense. Peter Parker was Spider-Man.

The man that Ali had attacked was out cold which left only one shooter which Peter quickly moved too and knocked out.

They thought it was over but Ali had forgotten about the guy that she had winded but not knocked out. This guy had managed to grab one of the guns lying on the floor.

Peter was too busy trying to gauge Ali's reaction and so didn't see the shooter but Ali did and ran over to Peter who was clearly the target.

"Peter!"

She managed to push him slightly to the side but mainly used her body to block the bullet.

Ali felt it enter her shoulder and heard it fall to the floor as it went right through her shoulder.

Peter ran over to the man and quickly and efficiently knocked him out by punching him in the head. Ali had dropped to the floor by this point in shock and in pain.

Once the last shooter had been dealt with Peter ran to where Ali was lying on the floor and pressed his hand over the wound to try and stop the blood that was pouring out from it.

"Ali! Ali!"

Ali eyes were closed but she wearily opened them.

"Would it surprise you if I said that this is the first time I have ever been shot."

Her voice was faint but Peter was just glad to hear it.

"You shouldn't have done that. I can take a bullet."

"You may be Spider-Man but I don't believe that even he could take a bullet to the heart and live to tell the tale."

"You know that I am Spider-Man?"

Ali smiled at him even through the pain in her shoulder.

"Of course I do. It isn't hard to piece things together and you literally just webbed a guy up and shattered a gun with your bare hand."

Peter smiled slightly at that but his smile didn't last as Ali closed her eyes again.

The blood loss was beginning to take effect on her and her head was beginning to spin.

She felt the ground disappear and opened her eyes slightly to see that Peter was carrying her bridal style across the room.

He still had managed to keep pressure on her shoulder with one of his hands though and was still looking down at her worriedly.

"I need to get you too a hospital."

"Peter honestly I am fine. S'not the worst thing that I have had to deal with."

That didn't seem to ease any of Peter's worry.

Ali tried to move her shoulder and cried out in pain. This made Peter almost drop her in fright thinking that he did something to cause her pain though he quickly realised that she had been the one to move her shoulder.

He wrapped his arm securely around her arm to prevent her from moving it while still keeping pressure on the wound and carrying her.

"I guess I just have to remember not move."

"You think! Okay I am going to... I don't know what to do!"

Ali could feel that Peter felt helpless and close to tears so she somehow found his hand with the arm that hadn't been shot at and held it.

"I wouldn't worry. My family will be here soon. Sides life kinda owes me after being stabbed and kidnapped so not going to die."

This only slightly lifted Peter's concern as she was still acting like her normal self despite the pain though it returned when he saw Ali's eyes start to flutter shut.

"Ali! You need to stay awake! Come on!"

"Is so dark... Your head keeps spinning."

Her words were slurred but she did manage to open her eyes slightly.

At that moment the elevator dinged open and all of the Avengers came rushing out though all of them but Tony ignored Peter.

Steve prised Ali out of Peter's arms and set her down on one of the couches. Natasha started to talk to her in order to keep her awake and Bruce rushed off to find some stitches after seeing the bullet wound in her shoulder.

Peter was now shaking and so close to crying. When Tony gave him a hug he broke down. Tony quickly checked him over but couldn't find the source of the blood that covered his T-shirt.

"Okay bud. You've got tell me what happened okay? Your safe now."

"They came at me... and... and I got out of the lab and came here cause I knew that Ali was up here... She was fighting them and then we thought they were all down but... but one of them was still conscious and found a... a gun. I couldn't stop her Mr Stark. I tried but I couldn't stop her."

Tony held Peter while he cried into his shoulder.

"Couldn't stop her from doing what Peter?"

"She... she pushed me out the way. It's my fault that she is hurt. It's all my fault."

At that Tony held him closer.

"It isn't your fault. That was her decision and if she hadn't done it then the roles right now would be reversed and she would be the one feeling really guilty."

Everybody continued to ignore Tony and Peter as they were to focused on Ali who was still bleeding out.

Once Bruce had finished the last stitch, Natasha told Ali that she could sleep which she did almost immediately. As soon as Ali was asleep the tension that had been in the room disappeared.

Bucky had managed to drag all of the unconscious shooters into one of the spares rooms that had yet to be given a purpose on the floor so bodies no longer coated the floor.

Once she had fallen asleep all eyes turned to Peter who was still in a one armed hug from Tony. His face was tear stained but tears were no longer running down his face. Instead he was looking at the floor with shock and guilt written plainly across his face.

Bucky spoke first,

"Tony who is that?"

Everyone else was wondering the same thing but Peter didn't look up from the ground or speak so Tony decided to do it for him. Natasha meanwhile was analysing the boy and was surprised at what she found.

"This is Peter my intern. He is also friends with Ali I believe and they go to the same school."

Peter spoke then but his expression didn't change and he didn't look up from the floor. It was no more than a whisper but everyone heard it.

"She saved me... Shouldn't have let her..."

Steve walked over to Peter and placed a hand on his shoulder. At the feeling of Steve's hand Peter looked up.

"You must have been someone worth saving otherwise she wouldn't have done it."

Natasha and Clint both knew that Peter wasn't lying and so began to trust him. If Ali trusted him then she must have a good reason to.