Peter lowered the pair of them down into the warehouse , slowly, on a web attached to the rim of a broken skylight. The entire warehouse seemed to be empty, save for the structural support beams, as far as he could see. Katya waved him on, tapping her ear reassuringly before disappearing into the shadows. Peter had no clue what she had planned but he trusted her, so he made his way instead through the rooms. Finally, he came to a particularly large one, where he could see the Vulture at some type of workbench, facing away from him.
"Hey!" Peter called angrily, "Surprised?!"
The Vulture didn't even turn around. "Oh, hey, Pete. Didn't hear you come in."
"It's over! I've got you!" The room wasn't quite big enough for his voice to echo, but almost.
This time the Vulture turned around. "You know, I gotta tell you Pete. I really, really admire your grit. I can tell why Liz likes you. I do. When you first came to the house, I wasn't sure, I thought, 'really?' but I get it now."
Peter continued walking towards him, closing what still felt like an interminable distance with each step. "How could you do this to her?"
"'To' her? Nah, Pete, I'm doing this for her."
"Sure."
The Vulture sighed. "Peter, you're young. You don't understand how the world works."
"Yeah, but I understand that selling weapons to criminals is wrong."
"How do you think your buddy Stark paid for that tower? Or any of his little toys?" The Vulture had now fully leaned back against the workbench, as relaxed as anything. "People like that, Pete, the rich and the powerful, they do whatever they want. They don't care. And guys like us? Like you and me? They don't care about us."
"Pauchok, what are you waiting for? Web him up." came Katya's voice through comms. Peter scanned the room but couldn't see her.
The Vulture was still talking. "We build their roads, and we fight their wars, but they don't care about us. And we gotta pick up after them. Eat their table scraps."
"Pauchok!"
"I know you know what I'm talking about, Peter."
Peter's fingers trembled. Katya was right, he needed to web him. But first- "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want you to understand, Peter." The Vulture let out a single laugh. "Plus, it takes a few minutes to get her airborne."
Before Peter could ask what he meant, the winged portion of the Vulture's suit crashed through the wall behind him, buzzing low. Peter threw himself to the ground and it missed him by inches, careening off somewhere into the rafters. It buzzed him a few more times, which he easily dodged, crashing into support beams and walls each time it missed.
"I"m sorry Peter." The Vulture called out. Peter dropped down from the pole he'd been atop of.
"Sorry? That thing hasn't even hit me yet!" He said, voice brazen. All he had to do was web him up somehow before the wings got to him and they'd have him, but these wings were hard to shake .
The Vulture shrugged. "I wasn't really trying to."
"Pauchok, he's going for the support beams, he's going to-" Katya's voice through comms was cut off when she yelped, just as the building came crashing down around him.
— — —
As the dust began to clear, it became apparent that the immense amount of pressure on his back was coming from a portion of what used to be the ceiling. He tried wiggling around, to see what he was working with, but it wasn't much. "Myshka, copy, are you okay?!" Her yelp replayed in his mind as granules of concrete continued to fall from the still-settling debris. There was no answer.
"Myshka, copy, are you okay?!" He called, panicked. Everything around him was rubble- he had no clue where the Vulture had gone, or even how he himself was oriented. "Myshka?!"
He waited, resisting his urges to groan in pain and trying to quiet his panting breaths lest he miss something, but the other end remained silent.
"Myshka?!"
Nothing.
He had to get out of there. He hoped to god their comms had just gotten disconnected somehow, because the other option was that she was hurt, or worse, and he couldn't let that happen. He had to find her- but he was stuck. Wedged between two giant slabs of concrete, with debris locking one of his legs in place, he barely had space to breathe, but he could move an arm. He ripped off his mask, gulping air, scooting as best as he could out of what crevice he had. "Hello?!" he called out- not just for Katya, but for anyone for help, because he had to find her.
"Please, I"m stuck! Help, I can't- I can't move-" She could be bleeding out underneath a concrete slab of her own, or have landed wrong on some rubble, or have been crushed entirely- Peter kept trying to wiggle out, but it wasn't happening. He was entirely pinned.
He looked up as best he could, and was just met with his own reflection- a pipe must have burst somewhere or something, because there was water all over the floor- and he looked exactly how he felt. Harried. Exhausted. And Terrified.
Okay, Katya was off comms and needed his help, but he wasn't going to be able to help her from here. What would she say if she were on comms, though? Probably something like 'get off your ass, Pauchok, we've got a plane to catch," right? Yeah. Probably something like that. So he was gonna get off his ass.
He wiggled around to get his legs as bent as he could underneath himself for optimal leverage, and began to push. He'd stopped moving buses before, he could lift a concrete slab- but it was huge, and thick-he'd never lifted anything this heavy before. But that wasn't an excuse. He tried to imagine what Katya would've said if they were training and he said something like that. She'd probably just have him do it, and then do it again, so she could say 'and now you have.'
He could do this.
He had to do this.
"C'mon Spiderman…" he told himself, "C'mon…."
It was slow going, but the concrete was beginning to shift. Encouraged, he managed to shift his feet, giving himself better leverage as he continued to lift. C'mon, Spiderman…C'mon, Pauchok…
Crying out with effort, he finally lifted the concrete above him high enough that he could slip out, which he did immediately, letting it fall back to the ground with a crash. Relief flooded his arms as the weight disappeared, and his legs tingled with the return of circulation.
And now you have.
